


Sins Of The Father

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-14
Updated: 2005-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:36:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 51,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chapter 1: Way back in Season Two, Wes slept with a bleached blonde, remember? Well, he knew her a long time before that! Now, post "Deep Down," the past comes back to haunt him and introduces him to his young daughter. Then an old "friend" decides to use Wes's new situation for revenge. Or is it a twisted kind of justice…?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1/25

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

***

"You're a hard man to track down."

Wesley raised his eyebrows at the words he received when he answered the phone. Not even an hello, he thought absently.

"Am I?" he asked mildly, "can I ask who had a hard job tracking me down?"

She laughed, a hard, embittered laugh that was somehow familiar, like he had heard a softer version once. It irritated him, the laughter and the not knowing. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair and waited. God, that voice was familiar.

"You haven't changed," she commented.

That would indicate she knew him. Though he still couldn’t remember her. He thought back to his Council days and quickly ran though the names of woman he had known then. There hadn't been many, the Council didn’t believe in letting women overrun their establishment, especially when women like Gwendolyn Post went bad. 

He waited for her to continue, wondering vaguely if Lilah was coming over that night. 

The thought of Lilah Morgan sent a thrill of intense lust and hate through him. 

The part of him that was still the Wesley that was ridiculed as a Watcher but welcomed into the family of the Angel Investigations team, wondered what the hell he was doing with her. 

The part of him that had by now become used to waking up late and drinking into the early hours didn’t really care, because when she was there, he was dark and there was no good Wesley telling him this was wrong.

Wesley ignored the fact that if he put a stop to his torrid affair with her; he wouldn’t have to live with the conflicting feelings. He ignored this reasoning because, without her, he would be totally alone.

"You don’t remember me, do you?" the woman on the phone asked finally.

"No," he answered casually, "I can't really say that I do."

"Melissa," she offered, "Melissa Roberts."

Ah. Melissa Roberts had been the woman he had met in his Council days and dated for two months seven years ago. Wesley had thought she was perfect for him. He had seen her - what was it now? Two years ago? - and they had spent the night together, "for old times sake." She had been the bleached blonde Angel had smelt on him at the beginning of his Darla obsession. 

"Yes, Melissa, I remember you," he told her, "what do you want?"

"To meet," she answered.

"Why exactly?" he sighed, not really wanting to go out, not when there was a new bottle of whisky in the kitchen and the faint promise of sex with Lilah later in the evening.

"To talk."

"About what?"

"Look, just meet me, will you?"

He thought about declining, but decided that he should get out, he could probably get out and back in time to down half the bottle of Jack Daniel's before Lilah showed.

"All right," he answered after a pause, "do you know the Lightbulb club?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Meet me there in half and hour."

"Fine." 

She dropped the phone.

She hadn't said goodbye either.

***

She was seated at the bar when he arrived, nursing a cocktail. He cringed slightly at her appearance. Her hair had been blonde when he had seen her again two years ago, but it was lighter now and it contrasted sharply with her half inch black roots. She was turned slightly so he could see the enormous amount of eye makeup she wore and the garish red lipstick that did nothing for her sickly complexion. Her top showed just too much cleavage to be classy and her short skirt rode up high as she crossed her legs, exposing painfully slim thighs, he didn’t remember her being that slim. She wore high heeled leather boots that looked years old. 

When he had first seen her, walking down the Council hallway, she had been wearing a knee length black pencil skirt, a white blouse and slim black high heels. Her hair had been it's natural brunette and he had thought her beautiful. 

When he had seen her in Caritas two years ago, her hair had been blonde and she wore jeans and a white sweater. She wasn’t as well dressed as before, but she had still been beautiful.

Either he had been very drunk throughout their two-month relationship and that night, or she had let herself go. 

Or maybe he had become used to a more sophisticated type of woman lately. Lilah Morgan was a cold, ruthless bitch, but one couldn’t fault her sense of elegant style.

"Melissa," he said.

She turned and raked her eyes over him.

"You've let yourself go, Wesley," she commented.

"I was thinking the same thing about you," he shrugged and sat down, "what do you want?"

"I want you to do me a favour. That’s what you do, isn't it? What was it you said… "We help the helpless." Or was it the hopeless? I can't remember. Anyway, I want some help."

"I'm no longer in that line of work," he answered shortly, forcing memories of Cordy, Fred and Gunn away, successfully burying every memory of his friendship with Angel.

"Yeah?" her voice became a sneer, "well you're not getting out of this."

"What?" he snapped, "getting out of what? You want a vampire killed, Melissa? Or a demon? Go and get help from someone who cares!"

"Come home with me," she said suddenly, ignoring his outburst.

He was startled momentarily, then chuckled darkly.

"I thought you said I'd let myself go, Melissa?" he asked, "have your standards dropped then? Because mine haven't."

"I wouldn’t sleep with you," she hissed, "that was a long time ago."

"Yes," he agreed, "yes, it was."

"Just come home with me," she replied, getting up, grabbing her purse and forcing her way through the crowd to the door. 

Wesley let her go, then something tugged inside him and he got up. He handed a five-dollar bill to the barman and walked away without collecting his change. 

She was waiting by a taxi and her satisfied smirk infuriated him. She got into the taxi and he climbed in after her, wondering what on earth had happened to her to change her into this embittered woman who had still been a bright, bubbly young woman only two years previously.

***

She led him up the stairs of the motel and along the corridor. His shoes stuck to the sticky patches of carpet that remained. He heard the sound of a couple arguing in one room and a radio blaring pop music in another. He waited, leaning against the wall as she unlocked the door. He made to enter, but her hand stopped him. He noticed that the nails of her hand were stubby, the pink polish chipped. He tried to recall how her nails had looked when he had known her, and remembered that they had always been long and immaculate.

"Wait here," she said as she went in and pushed the door closed.

He didn’t answer and leaned against the wall again. He sifted through his memories and found the ones of the night he had met her and the morning after. 

He had liked her the minute he had clapped eyes on her when he passed her in the corridor of the Council building. She was a research assistant, a fact he used to strike up conversation. He had even summoned up the courage to ask her why she had gotton involved with the Council.

"Why are you here?" she had asked in answer to his question.

"You can meet some very interesting people here," he had replied, thinking it sounding better than the truth, which was he was the eldest boy in his family and tradition stated he should become a Watcher.

Her eyes had drifted over him then, a small smile on her face that made him blush slightly.

"I've got a feeling you're right," she had answered.

Then they had spent another two and a half hours talking and laughing and Wesley found himself liking her more and more as the night went on. 

The night went on to culminate in him asking her in for coffee, which rapidly became sex. It had been fun, he wasn't denying that even now, and it had lasted for a while. Wesley had thought he had been in love with her at the time. Looking back on it, Wesley now saw how truly naïve he had been and, in a way, innocent. She had woken up, accepted the coffee he offered her, then showered, dressed and left, taking one of his shirts with her.

"Bye, Wesley," she said, kissing him lightly on the cheek as she left, "I'll bring your shirt later."

When she was gone, the three other male trainee Watchers he shared the house with crowded around to congratulate him on bagging the most beautiful woman in the Council.

The very fact that his peers were envious and that she was so lovely made him feel that maybe he wasn’t as weedy and hopeless as he had always thought and been told. 

His relationship with Melissa had taught him not to look to far ahead; the relationship had ended when she left for Spain to work on researching a fire demon that was native to Spain. They had talked over the phone every other day, but soon it became once a week, then a month, until they lost touch completely. 

Then he had seen her in Caritas and they had talked like they used to, but he still knew her well enough to know she was holding something back. She had changed, the light had faded from her eyes and she seemed worn down, but she still had that same bubbling laughter. He had planned to offer her help, a job; money the next morning because he still had residual feelings for her.

But she had gone before he had even woke up.

What had happened in the last seven years to change a beautiful, intelligent young woman into a raucous, poorly dressed shadow of the women he knew, he couldn’t possibly imagine, but most of it had obviously happened in the last two years.

His attention was drawn to the sounds inside Melissa's motel room and he looked around the hall once more, wondering again what on earth had happened to her and her good job. He heard a gruff male voice, then the sound of stumbling as the door opened.

"Come in," Melissa said in a low voice.

He walked inside the room and immediately noticed the tall man in the middle of the room. He wore a white shirt that looked about a size too small for him and clung to his muscular chest. His hair was longer and his goatee straggly, but there was no denying who he was. 

"Leonard Manning," he stated.

The man glanced at Melissa.

"Is he going to be here long?" he asked her.

She cowered slightly before him and stepped forward, placing a hand on his arm.

"Not long, Lenny, not long," she said.

He pulled his arm away sharply and shoved past her, sending her sprawling onto the bed as he left, slamming the door behind him. Wesley came forward and helped her up; the side of him that still cared about others seethed with anger at the man's treatment of this woman.

"How long have you been with him?" he asked gently.  
"Six years," she answered, "I knew him when I knew you and we worked together in Spain, that’s where we got together and I've been with him ever since. Except," she lowered her eyes, "except that night when you and I… I went back to him because I love him."

"He hurts you, doesn’t he?" Wesley asked, though it was more of an observation.

She pulled her arm away from him and glared at him.

"No!" she protested, "he just doesn’t like meeting men I've… been with."

He folded his arms and stared at the opposite wall.

"He was always a bully, Melissa."

"You should know," she snapped. He winced at that, reminded of the time Leonard Manning had publicly ridiculed him in the middle of the lunch hall. And he had just stood there, blushing furiously, searching frantically for something to say as everyone watched.

"Why did you want me to come here?" he asked after a long silence.

"Lenny and I are moving on. We're going to Florida and we're getting a little house. He said we can get married once we're settled."

"That’s all very well and good," Wes answered, "but why would I care if you and Lenny got married?"

"You don’t have to care," she snapped in a low voice, "you're not here about that."

She got up and crossed the room to where a pile of clothes and blankets lay on three old chairs pushed together in a line that Wes hadn't noticed. She murmured soft words and pulled the blankets back. When she stood up again, Wesley saw the tuft of curly brown hair over Melissa's shoulder and the small feet that dangled in the air. He saw the bundle struggle and eventually slump against Melissa.

Wes stood up sharply and backed away from Melissa.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded as the bundle in Melissa's arms squirmed again and lifted its head. 

"Charlotte," Melissa said, "this is your daddy."

The small girl blinked big blue eyes at Wesley and he felt a sharp stab of fear as she yawned and returned her head to her mother's shoulder.

"I bloody well am not!" he protested.

"Yes, you are, Wesley," Melissa hissed, "I didn’t sleep with anyone after you because I was sick. Then I found out I was pregnant. She's yours, look at her, for Christ's sake! Lenny said we can't take her with us to Florida and it was about time you faced up to your responsibilities!"

"What about your responsibilities?!" he asked, in a low but angry voice, "you're her bloody mother!"

"And I've done my best," Melissa answered, tears evident in her voice, "but you could give her so much more."

"We used protection, Melissa!" he spluttered, "and you told me you were on the pill!"

"I was. I must have missed a day," she answered, "and condoms aren't always reliable, Wesley."

A distant thud caused Melissa's eyes to widen and she pushed Charlotte into Wesley's arms, he didn’t answer, he was embarrassed into silence by her reference. Still tired, Charlotte snuggled into his arms and leaned her head against his chest. His arms held her gently, instinctively. His breathing came rapidly as he panicked; he hadn't been this close to a child since Connor…

Lenny walked back into the room and took in Wes and Charlotte. He picked up a bag from the floor and thrust it at Wesley.

"Take the brat and get out," he ordered.

Wesley felt his anger rise. He hadn't been treated like this in a very long while.

"Why can't you take her to Florida?" he asked, his voice ringing with authority.

Lenny looked startled by Wesley's boldness. For the first time he noticed Wesley's height and the cold blue of his eyes. Lenny had never really believed this man who didn’t bulge with muscles had any kind of strength or control. He never would have believed that the young man he had mocked for years throughout his Watcher training would have the courage to stand up to him.

For a second, his belief wavered.

"Because we don’t want her," he answered.

"Are you sure we couldn’t take her, Lenny?" Melissa asked weakly.

"No, we can't!" Lenny yelled, rounding on her, his arm raised.

Wesley's hand closed around Lenny's wrist and squeezed a little, pulling it down. Surprised by the Wesley's strength and bravery, Lenny dropped his hand and turned back to him.

Charlotte, wakened by Lenny's yells, stared at Wesley. He ignored her and Lenny and spoke to Melissa.

"If I don’t take her, where will she go?" he asked.

"A children's home," she answered quietly, "Lenny said we'd have to put her in a home."

"Is that true?" he inquired.

"Yes, Pryce," Lenny answered gruffly, "so it doesn’t matter if you don’t take her, we'll be rid of her just the same."

Alone. Complete isolation. 

He was all alone in the dark with his thin legs pulled up against his chest, his chin leaning on his knees. He wasn’t going to cry or call for his father to let him out. If he could just prove to his father that he was brave, that he was a big boy, his father would let him out and would look at him like he mattered. He felt a whisper of something crawling over his foot and shuddered, surpressing the small sob when he remembered his sister's stories of the mice and spiders under the stairs. The ones that would nibble at you until there was nothing left. He was scared of the dark; but he was more scared of the silence, the way his breathing and heartbeat seemed obscenely loud. 

He was scared to be alone and unwanted.

He looked at this girl who was supposedly his daughter and for a brief second, he thought he saw himself in her eyes when she blinked up at him. That same need to be good enough, that fear to be alone and unwanted. He dismissed it; she was too young to be worried by such things.

"I'll take her," he said.

TBC…


	2. 2/25

***

Wesley woke up and sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes and running his eyes over his hair. He yawned and swung his legs out of the bed. He stopped at the edge of the bed and frowned. Something was wrong. Well, not wrong, different. For the first time in ages, he felt like he had actually slept instead of enjoying a drunken stupor. It wasn’t an entirely unwelcome feeling, but it was strange in its newness. He stood up and stretched, for some reason feeling quite positive about the day. He wandered out of his bedroom and into the living room. Suddenly, the floor came up to meet him.

"Ow! Bloody hell! So much for not having a hangover," he muttered, pushing himself up slowly. He sat up and rubbed his forehead, slowly opening his eyes again. A pair of huge blue eyes greeted him and he lost his balance, falling backwards, his eyes still fixed on the tousled head peering at him over the arm of the couch.

"Are you all right?" said a small voice. It was American, but had a slightly English tinge over the words.

He continued to stare at her as the memories floated back.

"Charlotte, this is your daddy…… It's about time you faced up to your responsibilities!"

"If I don’t take her, where will she go?"

"A children's home."

"I'll take her."

He stood up slowly and peered down at the young girl.

"Are you, um, hungry?" he asked. Hungry? He asked himself, surely you could have come up with a better introduction than that?

"Yes," she said, "can I have cereal, please?"

"Yes, yes of course. Come through," he walked away into the kitchen. He heard a small thud as she slid off the couch and the tiny pattering as her bare feet hit the tiles.

He poured a small bowl of cereal and pushed it across the table toward her warily.

"I don’t have any milk, I'm afraid," he said, sitting down, eyeing her nervously.

"That’s ok," she answered, munching happily, "are you always this scruffy?"

She looked up then and her face was set in a polite study of him. He raised his eyebrows and chuckled suddenly, rubbing his hand over the stubble on his chin.

"Not always, no," he answered.

"Oh," she nodded and bent over her cereal again, "what should I call you?"

"Pardon?"

"Mum said you're my dad, should I call you that?"

"I er…" this was all moving too fast for him, "yes, I suppose so. Um, Charlotte?"

"Yes?"

"I'm just going to get dressed, are you all right here?"

"I'm fine. Thank you for the cereal, dad."

He smiled at her, "that's all right."

***

He looked at himself in the mirror and frowned a little. The stubble was gone and his glasses had been pushed back onto his nose. He straightened his shirt and sighed, leaving the bathroom. He went into the living room and paused. Charlotte was bent over the bag Melissa had given her, sorting through things. 

She had his hair, chocolate brown and it fell in curls to her shoulders. She had her mother's slightly up-turned nose and light sprinkling of freckles. She set her things out in an orderly row and packed them back in neatly, before settling back on her knees and brushing her hair.

He approached quietly and sat on the couch behind her. She turned around and smiled at him and he noticed one of her lower teeth was missing and when she smiled, she curled her tongue into the hole. 

"Am I going to stay here?" she asked.

"Well, until you're mum comes back, at least," he answered.

"She's not," she replied matter-of-factly, "she's going to Florida with Lenny. I don’t like Lenny, he shouts and he used to lock me in my room when him and mum went out. I didn’t like that, I'm scared of the dark."

He stared in horror at the young girl and was dragged backwards in time to his own childhood. He was eight, a slim child, a little tall for his age, but his slight build hid his height. He had interrupted his father while his father growled curses at his mother. He had been wearing a suit and tie, with hair combed neatly and his glasses sparkled, they were going to a dance at the Council for one of the member's birthday. He had been told it was an honour. His mother had said he looked "smashing, a real gentlemen, sweetheart," and he only wanted his father's opinion. The opinion he craved. 

"Dad? Dad, what do you think of my suit? Dad?"

He never found out what his father thought, because with a roar of rage, he grabbed Wesley, pinching his shoulders hard and swung him under his arm. He held him tightly, making him cry out as his father half dragged him upstairs. With a spectacular "clip round the ear," his father threw him bodily into his room. He turned off the light and paused in the doorway, glaring at his son who lay whimpering at the foot of his bed, one hand clutching his face, the other his ankle that had been injured in the fall.

"You won't be coming tonight. How dare you interrupt me like that? How many times do I have to tell you not to speak unless you are spoken to? Are you stupid, boy? Of course you are. Now get into bed and I want you asleep when we get home, do you understand? Don’t nod at me, boy! ANSWER ME!"

"Yes, sir, I'll be asleep."

And with that, his father slammed the door, leaving Wesley in the dark. He didn’t cry until he heard his father's voice ringing out from the street below.

"You won't lock me up, will you, dad?" 

He looked shocked that she could suggest such a thing and hastily shook his head, placing a hand on her shoulder with a friendly squeeze.

"No, Lottie, I won't lock you up. Shall I tell you a secret?"

"Yes."

"I'm scared of the dark too."

***

Fred picked up the large and incredibly dusty book from the desk and opened it to the first page. She continued to flick through it, each turn of the page making her face fall even further. 

"What's that, Fred?" Gunn asked, slipping an arm around her waist.

"It's that book I got from that guy with the information on Tracklons. Remember?"

"Yeah. So why you looking all defeated? Is it useless?"

"No. Yes… I don’t know! It's in a language I've never even seen before! Only the title's in English!"

"Can't you look for it on the 'net?" he asked, "must be some translations out there!"

"I've looked. Absolutely no hits for 'The Codex Of Powers.'"

"Don’t worry about it, baby. It's probably got nothing we need in it, anyway. You wanna come for breakfast now or what?"

"Sure, ok? You buying?"

"Like I'd let my girl pay for anything," he grinned, offering her his arm with a grin.

***

"Do I have to go to school?" Lottie asked, looking up from a book propped on her legs.

"School?" Wesley looked up from his work and pulled his glasses off, rubbing his eyes, "yes, you'll have to go to school."

"Good," she nodded, "I like school."

"You do?"

"Yep. It's fun. But I don’t think the others liked me. They said my clothes were funny."

He looked at her gently as she returned to her book. He remembered that time, when you were old enough to notice people didn’t like you, but too young to take much notice. Yes, he remembered that.

"What are you reading?" he asked her.

She looked up with a broad grin. Seemingly ecstatic that someone was interested; she scrambled off the couch, clutching the book to her chest. He turned his chair away from the desk and she pushed the book into his lap. It was a hefty book, rather large for a girl her size, for she was rather small for her age. The book was open to a simple engraving of a Kun'Gai demon with an in-depth explanation. Keeping one finger in the book to keep her page, he turned to the front cover.

"Laton's Demonology Compendium," he read, "isn't this a bit much for you?"

"It was mum's, she said I could have it 'cause it was out of date. I don’t understand all of it, but some of it. And I like the pictures. Have you ever seen one of those?" she pointed to the picture of the Kun'Gai.

"Yes," he answered softly, "yes I have."

"What are you doing?" she asked, pointing to the mass of papers, "mum said you were a demon detective, are you detecting a demon?"

"Sort of," he answered, using a scrap of paper as a bookmark before putting her book to one side, "I'm looking for a friend."

She tiptoed to point at a picture toward the back of the desk and he shifted his legs to give her better access.

"Are you looking for her?"

It was a picture of Cordelia to whom she pointing. An old picture, when her hair was long and dark, but the huge smile was undoubtedly hers.

"Yes. She's an old friend. She's been missing all summer."

"Where do you think she is?"

"I really don’t know. But I don’t think she's in Kansas anymore."

She wrinkled her nose at him, "but we're not in Kansas."

"I meant - hang on," he grabbed the phone almost as it started ringing, "hello? Ah, Henry, it's about time, I'd just about given up on - Oh…?" Wesley grabbed a pad and pen and grinned in excitement, "a book you say…? Well, yes…. What's it called…? The Codex Of Powers…? No, I've never heard of it…. Where can I find it…? Oh. Right, thank you, Henry…. Yes. Goodbye."

He replaced the receiver slowly and sighed.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It was news about how to find my friend."

"So why aren't you happy?"

"Because someone already has it."

"But that means they can save her."

"Yes, I suppose it does."

"That's all right then," she nodded and pulled her book toward her, "you can read my book if you like. It always cheers me up."

***

Wesley tucked the blanket around her and smoothed her hair back as she sighed sleepily.

"Can I go to school tomorrow?" she asked.

"We'll see what I can do."

"Ok. Thank you. Night, dad."

"Night, Lottie."

He hesitated before dropping a hasty kiss onto her head. She snuggled into the couch and he picked up her book and returned to his desk where he switched on the lamp and opened it up. There was a knock on the door and Wesley stood to answer it. 

He should have really expected who he saw, but for some reason, he hadn't. It would seem that spending a day with a polite young girl who just happened to be his daughter had made him forget that he wasn't the old Wesley anymore.

"Well, lover," Lilah said, eyeing his lack of stubble, "I didn’t expect this. New image?"

She started to walk into the apartment, but he pushed her back toward the door, a little more roughly than he intended.

"There he is," she smiled, "there's my boy. C'mon," she slid her arms around his neck; "you know how this ends."

"Lilah, no," he pulled her arms from around her, "from now on, you don’t come here. Do you understand?"

She blinked at him and looked over his shoulder toward the bag beside the couch, a red sweater hanging out of it.

"What the hell's going on, Wesley?" she asked, "who's is that?"

"My daughter's," he snapped and pushed her back once more, slamming the door in her face.

He really should have tried an easier approach; he knew that as soon as he slammed the door. He thought he might have owed her an explanation, an apology perhaps. But he had not given either. 

Lilah stared at the door and blinked in disbelief. You think it's that easy, lover? Oh, no. Hell hath no fury, Wesley, like a lawyer scorned…

TBC…


	3. 3/25

***

Angel looked up sharply from The Codex Of Powers he had been trying to decipher and sighed at the ringing phone. He had given Fred and Gunn the day off as a thank you for the hard work they put in over the holiday. He had also promised Fred he would go and talk to Wesley at some point. But at the moment, he was waiting for nightfall so he could go and find his son. He picked up the phone and put his book on the desk.

"Hello, Angel Investigations," he hesitated for a moment before proceeding with, "we help the -"

"Spare me," came Lilah Morgan's voice, "you couldn’t help get yourself off."

Home for barely two days and he already had the blood-sucking lawyers on his back. Really felt like he was back now.

"What do you want?" he asked wearily.

"I have information about a mutual… acquaintance."

"Really? And what makes you think I give a damn?"

"This mutual acquaintance pulled you out of the ocean."

"Wesley," he answered, leaning back in his chair. He recalled the scent on Wesley when he had brought him back to the hotel. It had been the familiar feminine, dangerous scent of Lilah. And sex. Angel may be old, but he wasn’t stupid and he put two and two together pretty accurately.

"Hole in one," she replied, "anyway, I have information you just might be interested in."

"And what's that?" he asked, "'cause I already know you two are sleeping together."

He could almost hear her freeze and gather herself before answering. He smirked and waited for her to go on.

"Please, like I'd think you'd care about that," she said, though he heard the hesitation in her voice, "no, my info's far more interesting… Especially for you."

"Look, Lilah, will you just get on with it. I've got better things to do than talk to you."

"What, like playing in the playground with your kid? A bit sunny for that, isn't it?"

"Get on with it," he growled.

She seemed to realise he wasn’t messing around anymore and she decided she had annoyed him enough. 

"Did Wesley tell you he had a kid?" she asked casually.

Angel was thrown. He was stunned and his grip went lax on the phone for a moment. He sat up a little straighter and had to conciously stop himself breathing.

"How do you know?" he demanded.

"Saw her. Well, her stuff and he admitted it. I'd say she's about six from the size of her clothes. He really didn’t mention it? Gee, that must suck. He gets quality time with his kid while yours is out in the big wide world. You never knew Connor when he was six, did you?"

Angel felt rage boil inside him and slammed the phone down hard enough to make the contents of the desk jump. He stood up and grabbed his coat and the Codex before heading for the tunnels.

In her office, Lilah Morgan leaned back in her chair and smirked. And that’s just for starters, Wes. You'll need my help pretty soon. And be prepared to beg.

***  
Wesley searched his pockets for his keys, one eye on Lottie as she climbed the stairs to the apartment, one hand gripping a bar of chocolate. 

Reaching his floor, he touched Lottie's back lightly and steered her in the correct direction. Successfully finding his keys, he looked up from searching his pockets and froze. Obediently, Lottie paused a few steps ahead. Wesley stared coldly at Angel. He was leaning against the wall beside Wes's door, one leg leaning on the wall, his head bent, a book hugged to his chest. Wes knew he was aware of their presence, but he made no move. Wes walked over to him and studied him. He wasn’t scared, merely curious, though he reminded himself he had a stake nonetheless.

"Hello, Angel," he remarked.

Slowly, Angel straightened. His head rolled up, his foot dropped back to the floor and he straightened his back. His gaze flickered briefly to Wesley before resting on Lottie, who had finished her chocolate bar and was carefully putting the empty wrapper in her pocket. She looked up at Angel and smiled toothily. Wes looked at Angel and noted the change. His impassive face cracked slightly as she smiled, his eyes warming and his lips quirking a little.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," he answered, "this your daughter, Wes?"

Wes took a step toward Lottie and nodded at Angel.

"Yes," there was no use denying it, "this is Charlotte. I suppose you want to come in," he eyed the book in Angel's hands, "I daresay you need my help."

Angel met his old friend's eyes and realised this wasn’t going to be easy. His eyes lacked the almost naïve innocence they once had. There was no smile that greeted him, only a stony stare.

When Angel didn’t answer, Wesley opened his door, followed Lottie inside and left the door open. Angel hovered outside the door and peered into the dim hall.

"Wes, you've gotta invite me in," he said.

"I already have," Wes answered, "over a year ago."

"Oh," Angel stepped inside and was a little surprised that Wesley hadn't withdrawn the invitation, "look, Wesley, I wanted to tell you I'm sorry."

"Why? What did you do?" Lottie asked, looking up from where she was tugging her shoes from her feet.

"Er, I…"

"We argued, Lottie," Wes told her, leaning against the wall and watching Angel who’s gaze had returned to Lottie.

"Yeah, we argued," Angel nodded, "so I just want to say sorry… for what I did… at the hospital… I was angry and wrong and I shouldn’t have done it. And I wanted to say thanks … for finding me and the," his voice dropped a little, "the blood."

"I had little choice," Wes shrugged, "this town needs you so leaving you sleeping with the fish wasn’t really an option. Is that all you wanted?"

"Well, I er…" Angel hesitated. Something about this Wesley threw him off balance. The steady stare, impassive, professional voice held no familiarity, "Fred found this book… We thought it might -"

"Have something in it to help you find Cordy?" Wes asked.

"Yeah."

"Is that the one that isn't in Kansas anymore?" Lottie asked.

"Yes," Wes answered, "well, Angel, if that’s The Codex Of Powers you've got there, you've got everything you need to find Cordy."

Hope welled suddenly in Angel and he grinned widely.

"It is!" he handed the book to Wes who looked at it with a small smile playing over his lips, "could you… maybe… use your books and… y'know… sort of…"

"Translate it?" 

"Um, yeah?"

Wes raised an eyebrow at him and nodded slowly. His problem was with Angel, not with Cordy. But she didn’t exactly visit, though, did she? 

Lottie stood from where she had been watching the exchange on the floor.

"Are you going to translate it now?" she asked.

"I guess I am," Wes answered.

"Can I help?"

"Well, I -"

"You should let your dad get on with it, but you could give me something to eat," Angel offered.

Wes gave him a sharp look and his fingers clenched slightly on the book.

"Food to eat," Angel amended, "because that’s what people eat - food."

Lottie wandered into the kitchen and used a chair and clamber up to the cupboards. Wes hesitated and watched Angel follow her into the kitchen. Instead of seating himself at his desk, he sank into the couch and cast nervous glances at Angel and Lottie who were engaged in earnest conversation over the table, with a packet of biscuits between them.

***

"I'm going to school tomorrow."

"Really?" Angel swallowed hard and toyed with the remainder of the biscuit in his hand, "where?"

"The one at the end of the next block."

"Oh. Nervous?"

"No. I like school. Mum said I could go to a good college."

"Your mother? So… Where is she?"

"She went to Florida with Lenny 'cause they're getting married. I have to stay here. But I don’t mind 'cause dad's got lots of books. Do you like to read?"

He was surprised at her easy acceptance and wondered if living with Wes was a step up for her from what she was used to. He shrugged a little at her question.

"Sometimes."

"Are you a detective too?"

"Sort of. I help people."

"With dad?"

"We… used to work together."

"Why don’t you work to together anymore? Is it because you argued?"

"Yeah."

"Oh…. Who's Cordy?"

"A friend of mine and your dad's."

"He has a picture of her on his desk. You're in it too. Were you all friends?"

"Yeah, we were."

"What if you can't find her?"

"We will find her," Wesley said, coming into the kitchen and handing the book back to Angel with a bundle of notes, "that’s what I've got so far. It would seem we can contact her using the instructions in the book. I think you can also get her back as well, but I'd have to finish translating. There's a few notes there that, um, Fred might want to go over."

Wesley folded his arms and leaned back against the counter. Angel scanned the notes and grinned.

"You mean we could get her back?"

"It would seem so."

"But the rest… You haven't translated it all?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Angel, it's a rather large book and I'm not exactly fluent in the language."

"Oh, right. I wasn’t criticising or anything… Do you want to come over to the hotel tomorrow and finish 'cause we've got a load of books…?"

"I've got to take Lottie to school."

"But you could come by after."

Wes dropped his eyes and took a deep breath before looking up to meet Angel's eyes.

"Fine."

"Great. And if you want, you could bring Lottie over afterwards. I'll bet Fred would love to meet her."  
"Can I, dad?"

"We'll see."

Angel stood up and eased past Wesley back into the hall. He waited by the door and Wes followed him.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Angel said.

"Yes."

"Good luck at school, Lottie."

"Thanks," she grinned again and returned to the kitchen to eat the last biscuit.

"I'll go now then and you'll come over to the hotel tomorrow," Angel paused and wondered where his nerves came from. He started to open the door when Wes's voice stopped him.

"I didn’t know about her, you know."

"What?" Angel turned back and for the first time in a while, he thought that maybe Wesley would talk to him.

"Lottie. I didn’t know about her until the day before yesterday."

"Wes, what's that got to do with anything?"

"I just wanted you to know that when I - when Connor was a baby, I wasn’t aware I had a daughter."

Angel opened his mouth to question this line of conversation again when he suddenly realised what Wes was trying to say. He was asking Angel not to blame Lottie for Wesley's abduction of Connor. He was warning Angel not to seek a similar revenge on his daughter. 

Then he realised why Lilah had called him. She wanted the fact that Wesley had a daughter to drive Angel into a rage and perhaps push him over the edge. Whether it was for Wolfram and Hart that she wanted this or because she wanted to get back at Wes, he wasn’t sure. He remembered his anger at her after she called. He couldn’t believe that she would use Connor and what happened to him to turn him against an innocent child. But then again, this was Lilah the evil lawyer-woman.

"But you know now," Angel said softly, "and that’s good… She's a nice kid, Wes. I like her, so I really wouldn’t mind her coming to the Hyperion. I meant what I said before. As far as I'm concerned, we're good. So if you ever need any help with -"

"I don’t need any help," Wesley snapped, their tentative connection broken, "I'll see you tomorrow, Angel. Goodbye."

With that, Wes turned sharply on his heel and stalked into the living room, leaving Angel to sigh and leave quietly.

***

"Hey, Angel! Where you been?" Fred called from the counter where she and Gunn canoodled.

"I went to see Wesley," he replied.

"Oh?" Fred attempted casual and failed miserably, "what happened?"

"Yeah, man," Gunn said, "how's English?"

"He's… different."

Fred sank back against the counter. "You really don’t care anymore, do you?" God, maybe she was right. Maybe he really didn’t care anymore. Maybe he hated them. Maybe he would never want to return to the gang. Maybe - He saved Angel. Why would he do that if he didn’t care? He's just defensive, that’s all.

"Different good?" Gunn asked.

"I don’t know. He seemed pretty… distant."

"Oh, you noticed that too?"

"Charles," Fred said reproachfully, "he was probably just nervous."

Gunn didn’t reply, but he didn’t think Wes had been nervous. This new, tough-guy Wes didn’t get nervous. He didn’t get anything; he didn’t seem to feel anything anymore. But of course, he didn’t say that to Fred. Ever since Angel's return, she had been hopeful of reconciliation. It was true, but it was only partly because Fred wanted everyone back together like Gunn thought. The other reason was guilt over what she had said at the hospital. 

"He looked at the book," Angel indicated the Codex, "that will help us get Cordy back. He's coming round tomorrow to finish translating."

"Really?" Fred could barely contain her excitement and grinned at Gunn who felt a slightly stirring of relief. If they could get Cordy, Wes and Lorne back, things would be fine again. He had to admit he missed them.

"Yeah. And if it takes a while, you might have to pick his daughter up from school."

"Oh, ok."

Angel nodded and left them, crossing the lobby and climbing the stairs to the exit. He was going out to find his son. If Wes could have some kind of relationship with his daughter when he had never known her, he was going to get his son back.

Fred grinned happily at Gunn who's hand tightened on her hip as he kissed her. She pulled away frowning.

"Wait, did Angel say Wes's daughter?"

TBC…


	4. 4/25

***

He entered the hotel with his shoulders hunched and two books and a file of notes in his arms. He paused inside the door and looked around the lobby. He silently noted the faint red marks of a pentacle on the floor and was reminded of the many times he had been sent out to buy something - anything - to remove stains from the floor. He remembered being roped in by Cordy to scrub old demon goop off the floor. And he remembered the times he had spent at the counter, eating Chinese food and joking with Gunn. He remembered the buzz that hummed around the hotel when something major was going down. He would be researching, buried in dusty books, Fred nearby, her fingers clattering over the keys of her computer. Cordy would be helping him research, occasionally checking on Angel who would hover, awaiting the moment when someone would come up with something he could kill. Gunn would either be out with Lorne checking their sources or watching the activity and making suggestions. 

He shook the memories away and walked slowly down the steps into the lobby. Only half his mind was here, the other half was stuck in the middle of a school playground with a smiley teacher and his little girl. She had told him she didn’t think the other kids liked her at her old school. What if this was the same? He knew all too well how cruel kids could be. He also knew how cruel parents could be and this was not the first time that his daughter brought back memories of his own less than happy childhood. This was also not the first time he had told himself he would not be like his father. He wouldn’t hurt her in any way. The last thing in the world Wes wanted to be was like his father.

Fred appeared by the counter and beamed at him. She scuttled around the counter and hurried over to him, taking the books from him before he could protest.

"We've cleared a desk for you and there's some coffee brewing 'cause I know you like coffee when you work. And I'm ready if you want any 'net research done. Oh, I looked over those notes of yours and I've got a couple of questions about some of it. Charles said if you need any words from the street, he's there. Lorne called, I think he misses us, y'know. But he says he's doing great in Las Vegas and he -"

"Fred," Wesley interrupted calmly, "I wondered if you would look for something on the Internet for me."

She stopped her babbling and giggled, leading him around the counter.

"Sorry. But… It's so good to see you. Less research for me! Not that that’s the only reason or anything…"

"Thank you," he answered.

She put the books down on a desk and he sank into the chair. She disappeared with and reappeared moments later with a mug of steaming coffee that she placed beside him. She sat at the nearby desk and opened up her laptop. 

"Hey there, English."

Wes twisted in his seat and Gunn nodded at him, handing him the Codex. 

"Hello," Wes answered coolly.

"This really gonna help us get Cordy back?" Gunn asked.

"Looks like," Wes replied distantly, leaning over his notes and opening up a book for cross-reference.

"That would explain why Angel was so chirpy last night."

Wes didn’t answer and Fred and Gunn exchanged a nervous glance. 

"So, your kid at school?"

"Charles!"

Wes looked up and studied the pair steadily.

"I suppose I didn’t ask him to keep it quiet. And yes, she's at school."

"How - How old is she?" Fred ventured.

"Seven," Wes replied with clipped formality, returning to his books, "eight in December."

"Right."

There was an uncomfortable silence and Fred tapped her fingers, wondering if she should ask Wes what research he wanted doing. Gunn was watching Wes, clearly unnerved. 

This wasn’t English. This was some dumbass who was cold and unfeeling. Someone who didn’t seem to have ever cracked smile in his life, let alone laughed. But Gunn knew otherwise. He had watched Wes laugh, grin and giggle like a schoolgirl when he was on morphine to treat the pain of a bullet wound. This was someone who both made him uncomfortable and pissed him off. He hoped that he would stop being like this pretty damn quick, or he would have to have words.

Gunn looked at Fred who was frowning slightly at Wesley.

"Fred, you seen Angel?" he asked conversationally.

"You mean he's not in his room?" she asked, her attention back on Gunn, her frown faded to be replaced by a small smile.

"No. He wasn’t there when I got the book."

"Don’t tell me I have to drag him out of the ocean again," Wes remarked without looking up.

For some reason, Gunn noticed a touch of the old Wesley in that comment and it caused him to break out in laughter. Not so much at the comment himself, but at the fact he had thought that Wes would remain cold for the rest of the day. Remembering afternoons spent in the company of Wes and Cordelia, he was grateful for the comfort of an old friend when another was missing. Evidently, Fred felt the same and was laughing too. Wes glanced up briefly before looking back at his notes. But Gunn was sure he saw one side of his mouth quirk just a little.

***

Angel shut the door of the basement behind him and pushed Connor slightly. Connor rolled his eyes in a typical teenage fashion and walked into the lobby with a scowl. He sprawled on the couch and glared at his father. Angel ignored him and went over to the counter, peering at Fred and Gunn who were discussing how to rephrase something they were searching for. Wes was almost invisible behind a haphazard pile of paper, books, scrap notes and coffee mugs.

Fred glanced up with her business smile that broke into one of relief when she saw it was Angel.

"You're back, where've you been?"

"Looking for Connor. He's got a bad cut on his stomach, you couldn’t…?"

"Sure," she nodded and left the office, grabbing the First Aid kit. Her face set slightly once out of Angel's sight and she glared at Connor once she reached him.

He was stretched out on the red couch, one hand pressing over his ripped shirt, holding a wound. His eyes were closed slightly and she touched his shoulder, giving him a shake.

"Not gonna use a tazer this time, Fred?" he asked, opening one eye.

"Lemme see," was all she set, pushing his shoulder to force him up into a sitting position. He hissed a little when she pried his shirt from his stomach, daubed in dry blood, "sorry," she said.

He shrugged and gazed into the distance as she disinfected the wound. 

"You should shower and change," she said, a touch of her old feeling for him returning when she saw his vacant, pained expression, "it's not bleeding anymore. You heal fast."

"Just like my dad," he said flatly.

"No, not just like your dad," she replied hotly, "your dad's a good man, he helps people. You're not like that. But you could be, if you gave him a chance… If you gave yourself a chance."

She turned back to the office and Connor sat for a moment, before standing and climbing the stairs to his old room.

Angel watched him go before glancing at the clock.

"Getting anywhere?" he asked.

"Cutting through all the myths, legends and vague prophecies, it looks like there are two rituals that could help us."

"What are they?" 

"One lets us talk to Cordy," Fred explained, "if Lorne were here, he could probably find us most of the supplies, as it is we're gonna really have to look -"

"I'll call him," Angel answered, "see if he can help us out. He'll do it for Cordy. What's the other ritual?"

"The Abandonment of Paradise," Wes replied, "you offer Cordy life on the mortal plane. If she accepts, she can never return to life as a Higher Being. But the choice is hers; the ritual is just the choice. Again, we'd need Lorne's sources."

"Right, then I'll call him. When have you got to pick up Lottie?"

Fred and Gunn's ears pricked, though their eyes remained on the computer. Discomfort meant they had not asked anything more of Lottie than Gunn's initial question, but it seemed Angel suffered no such discomfort.

"In half an hour," Wes said, "I'm quite close to translating the full first ritual, so I'll take it home with me when I leave."

"Or you could just bring her here," Gunn said, "c'mon English, we gotta meet her sometime."

Wes paused, his pen no longer streaking over paper. His eyes remained downcast. He was quite happy to be here to help find Cordy, but it was another thing to bring Lottie here. It would mean he was somehow part of the group again and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that, if he would ever be after what happened. But now he was so close to finding Cordy, he wanted to get it done as quickly as possible and he supposed all the resources he had were here, in the hotel. And with Fred and Gunn's help, he was sure he would be finished soon and Cordy would be home. Back with her huge smile and terrible cooking.

"Fine," he stood up; "I'll go and get her."

"No!" Fred said, "I'll go. You carry on working and I'll bring her back."

He hesitated, but after a short pause, he nodded and sat down, allowing Fred to collect his daughter from her first day of school.

***

"Dad!"

The shout was happy and bursting with excitement and tales that she longed to recount. Lottie's shoes could be heard clattering over the floor of the lobby. They paused and Fred could be heard directing her toward the office. She ran into the office and bounded into Wes's lap. Startled, he grabbed her waist as she toppled back slightly. Her enthusiasm was infectious and he smiled at her.

"Had a good day?" he asked, a slightly sarcastic edge to his voice that was softened by his smile.

"It's so much better than the one in Boston!" she cried, "it was so much fun! My teacher, Miss Monroe, said that if I liked to read, I could borrow books as long as I promised to take them back. I said I would. Then in the English lesson, I answered all the questions and Miss said I was really clever and I said "that's because my dad is really clever." And I said you knew a lot and she said I was lucky to have a smart dad and I said, "I know." And I made friends with a girl called Hannah and a boy called Ben and Hannah said I can go to her house one day. Can I?"

"If you like," Wesley answered, shifting her so she was settled more steadily in his lap, "did you get homework?"

"No," she said proudly, "I finished all the work in class."

"Good. You enjoyed it then?"

"Yes," she said with a bite of impatience, "I just said, didn’t I?"

He smiled. Yes she had just said, but Wes remembered that he would tell his father he enjoyed his Watcher classes, even though he didn’t. He said it to keep his father happy. Not that his father ever really was happy in anything he said or did. He was happiest finding fault. Which was the main reason Wes had decided never to find fault in his daughter's words or actions without just cause. He wasn’t going to crush the vibrancy that had survived seven years with Leonard Manning.

"Yes, you did."

"You hungry?" Gunn asked her, smiling at her babbling happiness and toothy smile.

"Yes please."

"C'mon then, your dad's translating so how 'bout we go explore the hotel?"

"Can I, dad?"

Wes looked at her, she had slid her hand into Gunn's, to his obvious surprise.

"Go on then."

She grinned and turned to Gunn.

"I'm Lottie, what's your name?"

"Charles Gunn, but you can call me Gunn."

They headed off toward the kitchen and Fred pushed away from the doorframe where she had been watching.

"Does she look like her mom?" she asked.

Wes leaned back in his chair, pulled his glasses off and frowned.

"A little. Her mother had darker hair and brown eyes. But she's got her freckles and nose."

"I thought she looked like you. Your hair and eyes. Seems to like books too."

Wes's gaze became distant and he smiled a little.

"Yes, she does."

"Fred?" Lottie looked over the counter, lifted up by Gunn who gripped her waist. "you coming to help us explore?"

She shot Wes a questioning glance.

"I'm nearly finished here," he answered, "I'll call you when I'm done."

Fred followed Gunn and Lottie out of the office, passing Angel as he walked in.

"Lorne's coming back," he told Wes, "said Vegas is too fake for him."

"So he's coming back to LA?" Wes asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah. As soon as he's back, we can get the stuff for the rituals. We get Cordy back -"

"If she wants to come back."

"Yeah. And we'll have the whole gang back together."

Wes ignored the implications of that simple sentence and raised his eyes to the ceiling where footsteps pounded and laughter floated down.

"I believe there's a game of hide and seek going on upstairs."

"Not my thing."

"Didn’t think it was."

His coldness had begun to thaw with Lottie's arrival, but it snapped back into place, though slightly less frosty. Once again, Angel felt nervous. He shifted nervously before opening his mouth to ask:

"Want some help?"

 

TBC…


	5. 5/25

***

"Please tell me you're joking, Fred," Wes said calmly, stifling a yawn.

"No, not joking," Fred answered, sounding close to tears, "I think he's in some kind of coma or something. God, Wesley, what are we going to do?"

Wesley sighed and rubbed his forehead. 

"Get some vervain, dragon's blood powder and comfrey. I'll be there as soon as possible," he dropped the phone without waiting for an answer. He cursed as he made his way to the spare room that had become Lottie's room, "bloody stupid! He's obviously insane. Lottie? Lottie? Wake up, c'mon, we've got to go to the hotel. Angel knocked himself out."

"Wha -? Huh -?" she shifted and rubbed her eyes, "what?"

"Angel went a little overboard with the orris root and he's slightly unconscious. So, we have to go rescue him," he said and once more cursed the vampire's stupidity and recklessness.

"Oh," she accepted this easily and slipped out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom, grabbing her clothes as she went.

Wes stared after her and smiled. He had caught himself watching her lately, awed by the simple fact that she was his daughter and seemed to enjoy his company. It had been a long time since someone had been comfortable in his prescience and he found himself enjoying it. 

The phone rang and he sighed. I'll be there as soon as I can, Fred, he thought, grabbing the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello, lover."

"Lilah," Wes answered flatly, "I thought I made myself quite clear when I said we were over?"

"You've said that plenty of times, honey."

"The difference is that this time, I actually mean it. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do."

"How's your kid?"

Wes gripped the phone and hesitated. He had been about to hang up, but now he was frozen.

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Well, I just hope she's ok. Does Angel know about her yet?"

Suddenly everything came into startling focus. You didn’t end things with Lilah; she ended things with you. If you had the nerve to end a relationship with her, you would pay.

"I knew you were a bitch, Lilah, but I do believe you've surpassed yourself."

With that he slammed the phone down and leaned against his desk, breathing hard through gritted teeth. That bitch! She had told Angel about Lottie. That would explain Angel's "this your daughter, Wes?" He had shown no surprise and now Wes knew why. 

Just what did Lilah hope to achieve by it? Revenge, he answered himself, to get back at you through Angel… To allow Angel revenge. He remembered the veiled warning he had given Angel: "I just wanted you to know that when I - when Connor was a baby, I wasn’t aware I had a daughter."

He remembered the horrifying thought when he had seen Angel note his daughter that maybe, just maybe, some deep rooted Angelus-like idea might rise to the surface and prompt Angel to carry out revenge on Wes by taking Lottie as Wes had taken Connor. And that’s just what Lilah intended. She'd get back at you and Angel would have crossed a line… Just like Wolfram and Hart have always wanted.

"Dad? You, um, you ok?" Lottie's voice was tentative and when he looked at her, it was like looking at himself when his father was in a particularly terrible fury. He gulped hard and extended a hand to her. 

"I'm fine, I'm just angry at Angel for being stupid. Come on, let's go and wake him up."

***

"Well, look who it is. The prodigal returns," Lorne watched Wes enter the Hyperion, with Lottie wandering in front of him before sinking onto the couch and curling up with a yawn.

"Hello, Lorne. How was Las Vegas?"

"Glitz aplooza. But after a while, the sparkle hurts your eyes. And you know, you'd think that if you hit someone over the head with a statue, you'd say 'sorry' before hello."

"Ah, yes. Sorry about that," Wes dropped his gaze momentarily.

"Don’t worry about it. I got over it. So, who's the mini-Wes?" he leaned over the counter and jutted his chin in Lottie's direction.

"I'm surprised you haven't been filled in," Wes replied, "I was under the impression that my personal life was up for public scrutiny."

Lorne shrugged and walked around the counter with his hands in his pockets.

"Fred filled me in. And you know the girl when she gets excited; I couldn’t quite hear her what with the excited squeaks. Which leads me to my next point, since when did you have a daughter?"

"I wasn’t aware I did," Wes answered, "not until a few days ago anyway. So, what happened to Angel?"

"Well, Angel-cakes got a Cordy craving and did the ritual. I'd got all the stuff and he couldn’t wait 'til you showed up today. Gunn found him in the middle of the trance then poof! He was flat out on the floor and has been for most of the night."

"Why didn’t you call me?" Wes asked with a bite of impatience.

"And would you have thanked us if we woke up the cutie pie? Anyway, he wasn’t going anywhere. Here, I got the vervain, comfrey and dragons blood power. You get on up there and I'll keep an eye on the little muffin."

Wes cast a glance toward his slumbering daughter and out to the world beyond the doors where the city was due to be crushed in the morning rush. 

"Let her sleep," he said, "she's had a long week and I got her up early."

Lorne raised his eyebrows subtly as Wes covered her with his jacket, tucking her in a little before taking the supplies and setting off up the stairs. He could hear Fred's hysterics from halfway down the hall and the calming tone of Gunn. He entered the room quietly and took in the situation at a glance.

Angel was lying on the floor with a pillow under his head, glowing faintly. Fred was in a corner, with Gunn's arm around her shoulders. Gunn was watching Angel warily. Fred's hand was pressed to her mouth and she was whispering to Gunn about what would happen if Angel didn’t wake up. Sat in a shadowed corner with his fist curled moodily under his chin was Connor, who cast dark looks at Fred and Gunn, totally ignoring Angel. 

"I've got the supplies," Wes said, entering the room and frowning down at Angel, "honestly, you'd think someone of his age would have a little sense."

"Will he be ok?" Fred asked.

"He'll be fine, Fred," Wes reassured her, "he probably overdid the orris root and ended up too deep in trance. I did warn him we'd have to be careful with the measurements."

"Look, just wake him up so we can get on with our lives," Connor said.

"Connor," Fred snapped.

He rolled his eyes at her and stood up, striding to the door.

"Let me know when you're done," he said, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.

"Right, so what do we do?" Gunn asked.

"Crush this lot up," Wes said tossing the supplies to him, "feed it to him and chant some Latin."

Gunn chuckled, but stopped immediately at Wes's serious face.

"You mean you were serious?!"

***

Connor stomped down the stairs and threw himself into one of the red chairs in the lobby.

"Hey, kid," Lorne greeted, "why don’t you make a little more noise and wake up the little muffin?"

"What?" he snapped.

Lorne rolled his eyes and counted to ten. He hadn't been back very long before Connor started to get on his nerves again. He approached the teenager with caution and frowned down at him.

"You know, she hasn't done anything to you," he thumbed toward Lottie, "so why don’t you let her sleep? Her dad's here taking care of yours after all."

Connor looked at Lottie and for a moment, he scowled shifted.

"Who is she?" he asked.

"Wes's daughter," Lorne asked.

Connor nodded and reclined back in the chair.

"You think they'll wake him up?" he asked after a moment's silence.

"You betcha. If there's one thing I do know, it's that Wes knows his stuff. We'll have your pops back in no time. And Cordy right along with."

Connor snorted and leaned his head back, shutting his eyes. Lorne started to return to the front desk when a white light screamed out of Angel's room, engulfed the first floor and tumbled into the foyer. With a resounding pop they all felt inside their ears, it disappeared. Lottie bolted up with a loud shriek and Lorne reached out to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Ok, bite-size, you know what I said about Wes knowing his stuff? Maybe I was wrong."

A yell of rage echoed through the empty silence.

"You bloody idiot!"

"I'd better go check on your dads," Lorne said uncertainly. He cast Lottie an uncertain look. She was pale and her blue eyes were wide in the face. She looked terrified. Without thinking, Lorne picked her up gently and placed her on Connor's lap, "watch her," he instructed, "I'll be back in a minute, sweetpea, and I'll bet your dad's just fine."

He turned away; leaving Connor staring incredulously at the girl as she shifted so she was sitting on the arm of the red chair. Her eyes were still wide, but the terror seemed to be fading, replaced by cautious interest.

Angel's door flew open, banging off the wall and Wes's yells were clearer.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?!" he practically screamed at Angel, "do you know what could have happened to her? To you both? You stupid sod!"

"I had to, Wes!" Angel protested, his voice weak, but firm, "I read through your notes and even you had doubts about whether it would work. So I found this spell and it's ok now, isn't it?"

Lorne entered the room cautiously. Gunn's hand was hovering between him and Wes, seeming to think that English might need restraining. Wes was obviously livid. Angel was glaring at him from his position seated on the edge of the bed. Fred was ignoring the exchange and was staring in shock at the other person on the bed.

"Cordy?!" Lorne exclaimed, "she's back! Oh, hallelujah!"

Wes paused in his pacing and looked toward Lorne. Then his eyes slanted to Cordy, dressed in white and looking like she was merely sleeping.

"Is she all right?" he asked softly, a dramatic change in tone from his earlier yells.

Fred stepped forward and took Cordy's wrist.

"I think so. I think the um, white light kinda left her a little… sleepy?"

"As it would," Wes snapped, looking at Angel again, "are you insane?"

"I had to," Angel answered somewhat petulantly.

Wes snorted and turned on his heel, stalking out of the room toward the staircase. Fred hurried after him as he descended into the lobby. He went over to Lottie and Connor and dropped to his haunches beside her.

"Are you all right?" he asked gently.

She nodded.

"I think - I think the white light scared her," Connor explained, "what was that?"

"That," Wes said, "was Cordy returning to this dimension."

"What did he do?" Fred asked, touching Wes's shoulder. He glanced back at her and sighed. Reaching out, he plucked Lottie from the arm of the seat and carried her into the kitchen.

He set her down on the counter and crooked a finger under her chin, lifting her face up a little.

"It's ok now," he told her, "it was just a light."

"I know," she stated bravely with a defiant lift of her chin, "I wasn’t frightened."

He chuckled a little and shook his head.

"Do you want a drink?" Fred asked, "OJ?"

Lottie nodded and Fred poured her glass, popped a straw in it and handed it to her.

"What about Connor?" she asked suddenly.

"What?" Fred replied, a little surprised.

"Connor. Should I take him a drink because you two have to talk?"

Wes raised his eyebrows and took her glass, lifting her off the counter. He poured her another glass and handed it to her along with her own glass.

"What about a straw?"

He laughed and handed her a straw. She smiled sweetly and carried it out to Connor. Wes leaned against the counter and smiled slightly.  
"Wes?" Fred ventured, "what did Angel do?"

"He," Wes sighed and paused; "he carried out the spell to contact Cordelia. But what he also did was carry it out in conjunction with another spell."

"Abandonment of Paradise?" Fred guessed.

"No," he replied, "something in the text indicated that the spell may not work. I told him that and he seemed willing to try it before attempting something else. Instead, he obviously went looking for an alternative. He used the alternative along with the contact spell. That was what knocked him out. By drawing him out of it, we somehow drew Cordy into this dimension. He shouldn’t have done it, Fred. I told him that the Abandonment of Paradise might not work if she refused to return, that may be what the text meant when it said the spell may not result in the return of the person. Whatever he did, we cannot be sure Cordy came back willingly."

"She did."

Wes turned slowly and stared blankly at Angel for a long moment.

"What spell did you use?" he asked.

"I think the book called it the Choice of Betters. It was a choice."

"Then why not just wait until we carried out the Abandonment of Paradise?!" Wes cried.

"Because it might not have worked! I know you thought that was just because she might not choose to come back, but what if she chose to come back and the Powers didn’t let her? It might have meant that!"

"But you didn’t even try!"

"I didn’t want to risk losing her forever. The Codex Of Power mentioned the Choice of Betters as an alternative to be carried out by a Champion. I found it in one of your books and it said if she chose, she would be welcomed back on this plane with the blessing of the Powers because -"

"Because the spell was carried out by a Champion with love in his heart, a noble Warrior who fights for the Being's choice. If they succeed, they earn the choice for the Being and the Powers full blessing," Wes finished quietly.

"Exactly."

"Angel, have you any idea how dangerous that spell is? If you hadn't been dead already, you'd probably be dead now. Cordy too, maybe. Yes, it's a good spell to use, but the tests… If you hadn't passed them…"

"Tests?" Fred asked, breaking her silence.

"There were tests," Angel said.

"What were they?"

"He can't say, Fred. One clause is that he can never talk of his time spent on the Higher Plane, fighting for Cordy's choice. Neither will Cordy ever remember anything of her time on the Higher Plane. But why did you have to use it along with the contact spell? If the Powers had taken affront to a lower being contacting a Higher Being whilst taking the tests… Who knows what they would have done?"

Angel shrugged, "we got her back. That’s all that matters."

Wes relented and nodded.

"Yes, I suppose so. But how about next time you don’t do anything so reckless? You try the safest avenues before you turn to spells that challenge the Powers."

"I won't."

"Good. Now, would you let me know when Cordy wakes up?"

"You're not coming back tomorrow?" Fred blurted.

"No," Wes shook his head; "I don’t work here anymore. I was just doing you a favour, for Cordy."

Angel opened his mouth to argue, but he didn’t have the energy right then.

Wes walked out of the kitchen, leaving Fred staring at Angel.

"Why didn’t you ask him to come work with us again?" she hissed.

"Because he'd fight me on it," Angel answered, "I don’t feel like fighting him right now."

Fred's face softened a little and she smiled sympathetically. There was a screech of laughter and Angel and Fred left the kitchen.

"You have to blow gently," Lottie instructed patiently, blowing bubbles in her own juice with her straw.

Connor scowled at her, wiped the juice off his chin and blew through his own straw.

"Well, looky here," Lorne said, walking down the stairs, "I do believe Connor might just smile."

Connor frowned at him and Lottie gazed up at Lorne, mystified.

"Hang on," she said, "you're green."

 

TBC…


	6. 6/25

***

The hammering on the door drew Lottie from her place sitting on the edge of the bed where she was pulling her socks on. She padded down the hall and stood before the door.

"Who is it?" she called.

"It's Fred, sweetie. Can I come in?"

"Is that really you?"

"Yes."

Lottie reached up and pulled the door open, eyeing Fred sceptically. Wes had heard the banging on the door and left the bathroom, toothbrush in his hand.

"Lottie, you shouldn’t open the door to people," he scolded gently.

"I asked who it was first, didn’t I, Fred?"

"She did, Wes."

"Ok, just be more careful, Lottie. Hello, Fred, what can I do for you?"

"I just came to let you know, it's Cordy. She's awake. She's fine, she's asking for you."

Wes raised his eyebrows sceptically and glanced down at Lottie.

"I have to take Lottie to school," he hedged.

"Can't you go after you drop me off, dad?" she asked.

"Well I…" he tailed off and sighed, "Fred, I really don’t think seeing Cordy is the brightest idea she's ever had and considering some of her other ideas…"

"Why not, Wesley?" Fred asked desperately, "she's asking for you! She really wants to see you!"

"Can I come?" Lottie asked.

"No, you're going to school."

"After?"

"Come on, Wes. This is Cordelia, your friend. You've known her for years, you helped us find her."

"She also abandoned me only a few months ago, I see no reason to do as she asks now," he replied spitefully, "and I only helped because of my history with Cordy."

Fred dropped her gaze, her eager smile faltering. Then she felt a surge of anger at his curtness. Forcing a smile down at Lottie, she flickered a glare up at Wes.

"Lottie, why don’t you go get your school things together, huh?"

Lottie cast her father and Fred a shrewd look before nodding slightly and returning to her room.

"God, Wesley!" Fred hissed, "anyone would think you didn’t care! I'm sorry for everything that happened between us all. But we've got a chance to change it now and you won't even try. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I don’t know, Fred. Maybe I find a little difficult to trust my old friends after one of them tried to kill me and the rest abandoned me. I really can't think why I'm being this way."

"You don’t trust us?" Fred whispered.

"I don’t know," there was no sarcasm this time, it was a wisp of sound. He leaned heavily against the wall and toyed with his toothbrush, "I just feel… Maybe I don’t want to risk getting that close to anyone again."

"And what about Lottie, huh, Wes? You don’t want to risk getting to close to your daughter too?"

"She's got nothing to do with it," his voice was snappish, "she's different. At the moment, she doesn’t happen to have the ability to walk out of my life and abandon me. But who knows. That could change. Being blood relations doesn’t mean you don’t hurt them."

"We miss you, Wes. Things fell apart, every one of us suffered, some more than others. But we were a family, Wesley. Despite everything, I still feel like we're a family. And if you're family, so is Lottie. We all want to go back to working together and looking out for each other. Can't you try? Can't you at least see what Cordy wants to say?"

He sighed once more and dropped his eyes. He had missed them. He was willing to admit that to himself if no one else. But the idea that he could go back into Angel Investigations and have things go back to "normal" scared him. What if he made the same mistake twice? What if all this happened again? This time, he wouldn’t be the only victim. If he went back into the "family," Lottie would become part of that family too. And if anything happened… Well, he knew how easy it was to fall into the friendly warmth of the group and for a child like Lottie it would be even easier.

But still, he was intrigued as to what Cordy wanted. And he had always wanted a warm family when he was a child and part of him wanted it for his daughter. And it looked like Angel Investigations was the only choice he had.

"Fine. I'll take Lottie to school and then go to the hotel. You might as well come along."

"Great," Fred grinned, "I'll go help Lottie finish up while you go brush your teeth."

She brushed past him and went into Lottie's room, leaving Wes in the doorway. He looked down at his toothbrush and let out a small chuckle as he returned to the bathroom.

***

It was like stepping into a time warp. Gunn and Lorne were laughing at the front desk while Angel and Cordy were talking on the couch. It was like a scene from only a few months before, when everything had been ok. The only difference was Connor, slumped in a chair with a scowl on his face as he listened to Angel and Cordy. But Wes noted his scowl looked a little false.

"…Oh! The pier! I have to take you to the pier, Connor!" Cordy was saying.

"I'll come along in the evening, but you guys can spend the afternoon together. Y'know… bond," Angel added.

"Yeah, Connor. It'll be great and before you know it you'll be - Wesley!"

Cordy beamed at Wes over Connor's shoulder and leapt up, bounding into his arms with the kind of enthusiasm she had put into her kiss when he first arrived in LA. And then some.

"God, it's so great to see you! I remember exactly two things about being up there. One, I was so bored! And two, I missed all you guys, including you. Wow, look at you!"

"It's good to see you too, Cordelia. Now, if you would just loosen your grip a little."

"Oh, right, sorry. That'd be the excitement."

"Happened to us all, man," Gunn called over, "I still got the bruises."

"C'mon," Cordy grabbed his hand and tugged him over to the stairs.

"Um, where are we going?"

"To talk," she said, "I've been away all summer and now I'm back, I've got lots to hear. I mean, I know all about Angel being in the sea and you getting him out, I've been filled in. But your daughter! I've gotta hear about that."

By this time, they had reached the top of the stairs and she was guiding him to an empty room. Once there, she pushed him onto the bed and sat in a chair.

"We have to talk," she said, her enthusiasm disappearing to be replaced with the familiar "no-nonsense-talk-to-me" Cordelia he had known.

"I believe that was what was going to happen anyway," he replied.

"Ok, first drop the reserved Englishman act. I think I've been watching it all summer and if I could remember it, it'd be really old by now."

He raised an eyebrow and leaned back on the bed.

"What do you want to know, Cordy?" he asked.

To his surprise, she smiled. Her demeanour changed and she relaxed back into her chair, laughing gently.

"Aha. You called me 'Cordy.' You're getting better. Ok, here's the deal, the guys miss having you around. I miss having you around and I only woke up last night. And we need you, you think we could research demons without your big ol' books?"

"Whatever happened to Demons! Demons! Demons! Dot com?"

"The Vegeries of Oden-Tal aren't in there," she shrugged, "I checked. And I checked for Haxel Beast. Nada. So I'll say it again, we miss you, we need you, come home."

"This isn't my home, Cordy," he sighed.

"But this is your family, Wes," she said quietly, moving out of her chair and sinking down in front of him, placing her hands on his knees, "we're your family."

"Families are vastly over-rated," he replied bitterly.

"We're not talking about your dad, Wes."

He looked at her sharply, a piercing look that made her recoil slightly.

"You think I didn’t notice all those little comments you made?" she whispered, "I probably saw a lot of it during the summer, but I can't remember. But I have been paying attention the last couple of years. Remember Ethros? That was sorta a giveaway, what the demon said. I'm just saying, don’t you want a family who cares?"

"I have my daughter, Cordy," he replied, a harsh formality to his voice, "she's all the family I need."

"Don’t you think she deserves more though?"

"You think I can't take care of her?" he asked.

"No, of course not. But how do you think you're gonna support her?"

"I have savings."

"And who are you? David Nabbit? Savings don’t last forever. You're a fighter, Wes. You are part of the good guys; you'd die in an ordinary job. Come back to work."

He looked to the side, at the wall. He felt her hands on his knees and remembered the soothing presence she always was in the office, dispensing advice, sarcasm or argumentative comments. He wondered when that combination became soothing for him. He remembered how reassuring it was to know that you had someone you could turn to. Whether it be Angel for some marvellous introspection and conversation, Gunn for his sense of humour, Cordy for her advice, Fred for her knowledge or Lorne for his own knowledge about what you were feeling. He remembered the first few days of utter silence in his apartment, before the sultry presence of Lilah Morgan entered his life. 

So he had a choice. Back to the silence - albeit punctuated by Lottie's loveable presence, but how long before Melissa returned and claimed her? - Or back into the bosom of the gang.

Not really a tough choice.

"When do I start?"

TBC…


	7. 7/25

***

"When do I start?"

I've gone stark raving mad, Wes thought as he walked out of the hotel and headed toward the school, absolutely crazy. What the hell is wrong with me? I've just walked straight back into it… How do I even know I can trust them? How do I even know they trust me?

He had regretted the decision almost as soon as the words left his mouth. It didn’t matter if he wanted back in. He should have said he would help them out whenever they needed it. That way, his integration would have been slower, not thrown in at the deep end. Which was exactly what he had done. He was back to late nights and fights with Cordelia, research and demons. He was back where he started. Not exactly, he reminded himself, you're a different person now. Hopefully a lot stronger. If this is going to work, you've got to learn to trust them. That’s where you went wrong last time, you forgot that you could trust them. 

But how was he supposed to trust them again? Look how easily they abandoned him. He had also spent the last few nights imagining what it would have felt like if Angel had taken his daughter without any explanation. He had been shocked by the gut wrenching sickness it gave him and he realised that it must have been worse for Angel. How could he be sure Angel held no grudge against him, if that was the sort of pain he went through? Trust him, he told himself, you trusted him before, remember? You could've gone back to the Council, but you chose him over that. You've done more good working with him than you ever have before. Talk to him if you're so worried, but for God's sake don’t bottle it up! That’s what happened last time and it's not just you that will get hurt this time.

"Dad!"

Wesley looked up and drew his shoulders away from his ears, where they had been hunched as he walked.

"Hello," he greeted Lottie, "good day?"

"Yep," she grinned and waved to a red headed girl and a blonde boy, "that’s Hannah and Ben."

"They look nice."

"They are. Did you go and see that girl?"

"Cordelia?"

"Yes," she slipped her hand into his and gave her friends a final wave, "did you?"

"I did."

"What happened? Where was she?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure where she was, to be honest. She doesn’t remember. It was a good place, but if she returns, she cannot remember anything she learnt up there. It's a rule. But apparently, she remembers precisely two things, she was bored and she missed her friends."

"Did she miss you?"

"She said she did."

"Are we going there now?"

"Yes. Cordy had a vision about a vampire nest and Angel, Connor, Gunn and I are going to clear it out. You don’t mind staying with Fred and Lorne, do you?"

"No. I like Fred. And I think Lorne's a pretty colour, don’t you?"

He declined to answer, but he looked down at her and frowned.

"I have told you, haven't I, about Angel, Cordy and Lorne?"

"Told me what?"

"That Lorne's a demon -"

"I guessed that."  
"Well, Cordy's also part demon and she has visions that help us fight the bad guys."

"Oh. But she's a good demon like Lorne. What's wrong with Angel?"

"He's a… vampire."

Lottie looked at him sharply, with a look that could only be described as "you are joking, right?"

"He has a soul, you see," Wes explained, "and he fights for the good side."

"How did he get a soul?" she asked, awe evident in her voice.

"Gypsy curse," he answered.

"Why'd they curse him?"

Wes stopped and looked down at her. Seven years old and she knew all about the world, the real world. But he didn’t really want to tell her that the man she quite liked had been a notoriously evil, bloodthirsty killer for over a hundred years.

"He never used to be good," he started carefully, "so he was cursed. You probably won't like me saying this, but I'll tell you when you're older."

"Is it bad?" she asked, "is that why you won't tell me?"

"A little. But all you need to know is that he is good now, all right?"

"So he's not going to kill everyone?"

Wes chuckled and started to walk again.

"No, he's not."

He might. But hopefully, not anytime soon.

"Ok. Is Connor his son?"

"Yes."

"Was it magick? 'Cause mum said that vampires didn’t have children."

"Yes, it was a kind of magick."

"Will you tell me when I'm older?"

"Yes."

They had reached the hotel and he pushed the door open and followed her inside.

"Got any homework?" he asked.

"Math," she answered.

"Did I hear Math?" Fred called, "need any help?"

Lottie disappeared around the front desk and handed the book to Fred with a grimace.

"Hey, English," Gunn said, grabbing his hubcap axe, "suit up. We've got vamps to dust."

Wes nodded and grabbed a crossbow and long wooden spear. Connor waited to one side, without his trademark glower, twirling an axe with an impatient air.

"Listen, Wes, man," Gunn started, "'bout what happened before, I'm sorry, ok?"

Wes was startled and when he turned to Gunn, his hand was stretched out. Wes hesitated before shaking it.

"Thank you. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for not telling you, for not confiding in you."

"Hey, I should've come to see you after. You're still the man that took a bullet for me."

With a grin, they exchanged the handshake that had so surprised Angel when he first saw it. Angel walked down the stairs, bearing a broadsword.

"Ok, guys," he said, "we'll take the sewers so you can make use of the daylight. I'll take the ones upstairs."

He led them to the basement, and watched as Connor and Gunn disappeared down the stairs. He caught Wes's shoulder as he made to pass. For one horror-struck second, Wes thought Angel would push him down the stairs. 

Instead, Angel smiled.

"Welcome back, Wes."

***

Wes and Lottie had gone home a few hours before. Lorne and Connor had gone to their respective rooms and Gunn and Fred were tucked up safe in bed. 

It was late and Angel and Cordelia were sitting on the couch talking. They were discussing movies, a subject Angel was entirely comfortable with as it meant he didn’t have to think about the last time they had spoken, before Cordy disappeared. He didn’t think he was ready to broach the subject just yet.

"You know," Cordy said, breaking the silence that had descended when their conversation about movies ended, "we never did meet up that night, did we?"

"No," he answered, somewhat nervously, "I guess we didn’t. You went up and I went down. I mean, in the sense that I was in the ocean and you were," he waved toward the ceiling, "up there somewhere."

"I remember needing to talk to you so badly…"

"Me too… I don’t think I had ever been so nervous."

Unless you count now, he thought.

"What was it you wanted to tell me?" she asked.

"What did you want to tell me?" he hedged.

"I asked you first."

He looked away from her and sighed.

"Lorne kept saying stuff, ever since the ballet, I think. But before he left, he pointed out a few things…"

"The way you feel about Cordelia is pretty much exactly how she feels about you."

"So did Groo," Cordy added softly.

"I am not the one you love. He is."

"What did he say?"

"That I… I didn’t love him."

"I don't know what to say, Groo."   
"Tell me I'm wrong… That I should stay… That you love only me."

"Why did he think that?" Angel asked, looked back at her, brow creasing slightly.

"Because he said I was in love with you," she answered simply, "he was -"

"Lorne said the same thing. Only, I was in love with you."

"…You two are so obviously connected… - You finish each others… - sentences. You laugh at the same… - jests. When he grieves, when he is hurting… - her heart breaks for you."

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it and the memory of Lorne's words and the feeling they evoked in him followed swiftly. Cordy's eyes widened slightly, her mouth twitching. She shifted in her seat a little and there was a pause before she finally said:

"Oh. So… Was he right?"

"I… uh… Was Groo right?"

She lowered her gaze and took a deep breath.

"Yeah."

"So was Lorne."

She looked up sharply and he had a tentative smile on his face. Hopeful yet not allowing himself to think maybe something would happen.

"Angel?" she said softly, leaning toward him, "where do we go from here?"

"Well," he answered, also leaning toward her, "I was thinking about kissing you…"

"Oh? Good plan."

Their lips met in a soft, hesitant kiss. But it soon became more heated as she slipped her arms around his neck and his arms tightened around her waist. She had no idea how she ended up in his lap with her denim clad legs either side of him. It was she who pulled away, breathless and giddy.

"We can't go any further," she gasped.

"I know," he answered, "I'm sorry."

"Don’t be," she dropped a brief kiss on his lips and pulled away before it developed, "we can… be together without that. Right?"

He was doubtful. But with her in his lap, her hands loosely around his neck, he didn’t have the will to say no. He remembered a time when he admitted how desperately he wanted to get lost in someone.

" It told me to kill you. You were in the dream. You know. It told me to lose my soul in you and become a monster again."

" I know what it told you. What does it matter?"

" Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly! I want to take comfort in you, and I know it'll cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn't care."

But that had been Buffy and this was Cordelia. God, if he couldn’t make it work with Buffy, how could he make this work with Cordy? Because I can't lose someone I love again, he told himself, this time, I'll make it work because I know how much it will hurt if I don’t at least try. This will be enough. We'll make it enough.

"Right," he answered.

She smiled and kissed him once more, before sliding out of his lap and climbing the stairs to her room. He merely sat on the couch and stared around the darkened lobby. 

This won't end well…a tiny voice in the back of his mind warned.

TBC…


	8. 8/25

***

Wes was worried. He was probably the only one that noticed. Fred and Gunn were too wrapped up in each other, Lorne was too busy re-establishing his clientele and Wes wasn’t sure if Connor was aware of the danger signs.

It had been a week since he rejoined Angel Investigations and each day, his doubts about returning grew quieter. Lottie seemed to enjoy spending her afternoons at the hotel with Fred helping her with Math. But there was something niggling at him. 

That something was Angel and Cordelia. 

He didn’t begrudge them happiness, well, ok, he did. Mainly because Angel wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular when he was happy. He was wary to offer any advice, unsure of how it would be taken, but surely, they knew the dangers. 

He couldn’t believe he was the only one who noticed the sexual tension that escalated in the week since Cordy's return. No one seemed to have a problem with their canoodling and making out, everyone else seemed to think it was great. Wes was surprised that Lorne at least hadn't noticed and made a mental note to ask Lorne whether he thought he was imagining it. 

But he had a right to be worried. If anything should happen between Angel and Cordy and Angelus returned… Well, they didn’t exactly have a Slayer on hand, did they?

He glanced up from the book he was reading in the lull between cases and caught sight of Cordy hugging Angel and planting a kiss on his cheek. He pushed his doubts to one side. Cordy had been there when Angelus returned in Sunnydale, she above all people would make sure their relationship did not cost Angel his soul. Angel too, would not jeopardise his friends or anyone else's safety.

Or so Wes hoped, but he himself understood how easy it was to give into passion and leave reason to other people.

***

"Hello, Lilah. Congratulations."

Lilah glared at Gavin Park, wishing for the thousandth time since she met him that she could strangle him. Yeah, she'd enjoy that

"I don’t have time for you," Lilah snapped, "so stop with the annoying little games and tell me what the hell that’s supposed to mean."

"I was merely congratulating a colleague on the fact that this department has at last got some good news about Angel."

"Huh?" she hadn't meant to say that, but the fact that they had good news on Angel, well, that was kind of new.

"Cordelia Chase has returned and it seems that they have embarked on a relationship. It's only a matter of time before they… well. Then, Angelus will be back and we'll be able to get him on our side."

"You think it's that easy?" Lilah asked, patronisingly, "if you did your reading, you'd know that Angel slept with Darla and nothing happened, it's on file, Gavin. And if Angelus did return, he is unpredictable and not a team player at best. It won't be easy getting him on our side."

"You sound like you're not even willing to try."

"Oh, I'll do more than try. I'll reel him in like a fish, but I'm just saying, it'll be hard work."

"Good think that you're used to hard work then, Lilah," Gavin noted, "what with all the work you've had to put in to make up for your previous mistakes."

"If I've made any mistakes, Gavin, no one will care once I've got Angelus. And, by the way, if Chase and Angel get it on and he becomes Angelus, you won't be part of the operation. I think you'll have a lot of paperwork to do."

She smirked at him and carried on down the hall. At last, they were going to have Angelus. And she would take the credit. Unlike Lindsey and some others, she didn’t force the issue; she let things happen naturally. Although the news was all good, she couldn’t help wondering what would happen to Wesley once Angel gave into his passions.

***

"Lorne," Wes started in a low voice, once he had cornered Lorne in the kitchen, "I was wondering, what do you think of Angel and Cordelia?"

"Likeable kids, well suited, so not gonna put the world in jeopardy by getting all touchy-feely."

"You think?" Wes asked doubtfully.

"Wes, Angel won't let it happen, neither will Cordelia. But yeah, the sexual tension - phew! See why I've been out so much?"

"And you don’t think they'll give into it?"

"Put it this way, I hope they've got more sense. They want to, sheesh, if you were Angel, wouldn’t you? But they won't, they've got too much to lose."

It didn’t serve to make Wes feel any better. Lorne had all but admitted they wanted more and self-control only lasts so long. And if they got caught up in the moment and reason went out the window…

"Why don’t you talk to them?" Lorne suggested.

"Because they'd really listen to me," Wes answered sarcastically.

"Stranger things have happened. Connor smiled, there's a strange for ya."

"Mmm," Wes murmured, "thank you, Lorne."

"No problem," the demon shrugged.

Wes left the kitchen and watched Cordelia and Angel from a safe distance. He sighed. He really didn’t want to do this. He glanced back at Lorne. Why couldn’t he say anything? Because he doesn’t think there's a problem. Has everyone forgotten how easily Angel went over to the dark side when Darla turned up?

"Uh, Angel? Angel, could I have a word?"

Angel looked up from polishing an axe and nodded. He kissed Cordelia briefly before getting up and walking over to Wes.

"What's up?" he asked, bouncing a little on the balls of your feet.

"You're happy," Wes noted.

Hearing a note of accusation in Wesley's voice, Angel stopped bouncing and assumed a sombre expression.

"No, I'm not. I'm brooding, see? In fact, I'm kinda upset about the stains on my broadsword…"

Wes raised his eyebrows and Angel's frown deepened.

"Ok, so I'm a little chipper. I know what you're thinking, Wes. You think Cordy and I are gonna… I admit it's hard not - y'know. But we're dealing. What we've got now, it's good, I can live with this."

"Can she?" Wes asked, slightly hesitant.

"She says she can," Angel answered, "we're not going do anything to risk my soul. I swear. And if we did, I know that you would stop me doing anything to hurt anyone."

"But could I?" Wes questioned.

"Yeah," Angel smiled, "you've always said you would, don’t back out on me now."

"I'm not. I just don’t want it to come to that."

"Neither do I. And it won't, ok? I've got too much to lose and I've learnt from my mistakes. You've got nothing to worry about, but seriously, I appreciate your concern."

And with that, Angel returned to his sword and Cordelia. Wes returned to his desk and his book, still fighting his sense of unease. Angel had promised, that should be good enough.

So why isn't it?

***

Wes had not taken Lottie to the hotel after school, instead he took her home, saying there was no work to be done. In fact, he was desperately trying to escape his foreboding. He had warned Angel, there was nothing more he could do. He had expressed his fears to Lorne; the one person who would have shared them had there been any reason. He had done everything he should have done. He had learnt from past mistakes. There was nothing more he could do. Yet he was still worried and he had decided that there must be a way around the curse. If there was, he was going to find it and offer it to Angel. That way there would be nothing to worry about and everything would be fine.

"Are you all right?" Lottie asked, as he grabbed another book on gypsy curse from his small bookcase.

"I'm fine, just looking for something."

"Can I help?"

He looked up at her, her own face mirroring his worry.

"No, I'm sure I'm just overreacting. It's all right. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all."

***

He should have known better than to pull her in for a deeper kiss rather than let her go to her room. It had become their nightly routine, a huge make-out session that always ended before it became too heated. But this time, the tension that had been steadily building for a week made him hold her tighter, run his hands down her back and cup her ass.

"Angel," she gasped, "we musn't…"

But her protests were feeble and she met his lips again, drowning out her own words. She struggled a little when he lifted her and started up the stairs, but she soon collapsed against him, rocking her hips and caressing his back with her fingertips. 

Darla, he thought, nothing happened there. It'll be ok. It'll be fine. Nothing to worry about.

Stop! His mind screamed over his rationalisations, stop it! Remember Sunnydale? Remember Buffy? You'll lose everything! Cordy, Connor, your friends! Think, Angel, think!

No, don’t think, Angelus whispered, just feel. You don’t love her like you loved Buffy, you know it. Nothing will happen, I won't get out. Take her, you know you want to. Imagine her skin, what it would taste like. She's part demon, Angel, imagine what she can do. Imagine what it would feel like inside her. Go on. Do it!

Angel could barely think through the voices echoing in his mind, he didn’t realise she had already tugged off his shirt and his fingers were fumbling at her bra. When he did realise, he pushed the voices to one side and gave himself over to her warmth, to her tenderness, to her love. 

The last thing he remembered as his mouth suckled her neck was Angelus's laughter resounding in his ears.

***

Cordy was sleeping peacefully, but she stirred and rolled over, her fingers searching for Angel. She opened her eyes when she didn’t find him and her heart almost stopped. What did we do? We - Oh, no. No, no, no. 

"Angel?" she called, grabbing a stake. Not Angelus. Don’t be Angelus. I shouldn’t have… I should've stopped it… Why didn’t I? Oh, God, what have I done?

There was no answer and she stumbled to the bathroom room, praying he was showering. She gripped the doorframe as she peered around the empty bathroom. The vision hit her and though they no longer hurt, the intensity of it pushed her back onto the bed, the stake clattering to the floor.

She saw Angel's lips on hers. She remembered telling herself that it should be enough, she didn’t need more because he loved her. But she felt the need growing inside her as he kissed her and his hands roamed her body. She knew she should pull away, tell him to stop and she did, but it was a weak protest and he ignored it, as did she. She remembered trying to stop it, but each time finding his hard chest or his lips on her skin. She remembered surrendering; telling herself it would be fine. She didn’t believe it, but the haze of passion drowned her doubts. 

She saw Angel and herself make love. She saw herself fall asleep in his arms. She saw him wake and roll away, running through the corridors, stumbling into walls. She heard a cackle of insanely cruel laughter. She saw the man she loved lurch into the street in only his pants. She saw him drag himself to an alley. She saw his eyes glow yellow, his agonised expression melt into a smirk. She saw two lovers die in that alley at the hands of - 

She opened her eyes and gasped, swallowing a sob. What have I done? She should have known this would happen. She did know it would happen, but she didn’t care. She sat up on the bed and reached for the telephone, dissolving into tears as she dialled the familiar number.

"Hello?"

"Wesley?" she sobbed, "oh, Wesley, what have I done?"

"He's back, isn't he?" Wes asked, sounding resigned, but not surprised.

"Yes," she whimpered, "I'm so sorry."

"That’s no good to us now, Cordelia," it was meant as a reproach, but it came out in a reassuring tone, "tell the others. I'll be there as soon as I can. We'll have to do a sanctuary spell."

"Wesley, I'm so sorry."

"It doesn’t matter now," he said, "just tell the others. Pull yourself together, Cordy, we'll need you."

"We've got to stop him, he's already killed two people."

"Calm down," Wes soothed, "I'm on my way."

"It's Angelus, Wesley," she choked, "it's Angelus."

But Wes had already slammed the phone down, cursing passion for being such a cruel bitch.

TBC…


	9. 9/25

***

There was something coldly calm about him. He packed his clothing with snappish precision and speed. It was the only thing that stopped him going mad and smashing something. So he kept a tight grip on his calm. He had learnt this icy calm in the time since his banishment from Angel Investigations and he had been finding it a hard habit to shake. At this moment, he was grateful for it. 

But inside, it was a different matter. Inside, he was seething.

I knew it! God, how could I have thought he - and Cordelia too! - would let nothing happen between them?… Because he left Buffy, he answered himself, I thought if he could leave the woman he loved, he would sacrifice a physical relationship with Cordelia for something less… disastrous.

"Well, you should have known it would progress to something more when he did not end it," he muttered to himself, grabbing his books and putting them into his case, "that’s why he left Buffy, to prevent anything happening. He didn’t stop his relationship with Cordy. Of course it would progress. Moron!"

"Morning."

Wesley twisted - with some effort - his dark frown into a tight smile and turned slowly.

"Lottie, do me a favour?" he asked.

"Yep," she nodded, "what?"

"Gather together any thing you want to take with you."

She frowned, raising her eyebrows a little.

"Take where?"

"We're staying at the hotel for a few days," he replied.

"Oh. Like a holiday?"

"Busman's," he muttered to himself as he nodded at her and watched her grin before running to her room to get her things. 

***

Angelus was many things, but he was definitely not stupid. The bastard was back and there was no way he was letting Angel's little friends re-en-soul him. Where would be the fun in that? Unfortunately, preventing himself being re-en-souled also meant focusing on finding out how to destroy the soul forever, instead of focusing on the murder of Angel's friends. 

But Angelus knew a thing or two about torture. He knew that knowing something bad was coming and having to wait for it was a torture in itself. Which was the only reason he was willing to wait for just the right time to exact fun and frolics - for him, if not them - on the Angel Investigations team.

He strolled to the bar and leaned his back against it, eyeing the clientele with folded arms and a smirk. It was mostly full of vampires waiting for sunset. A couple of decent looking girl vamps, but they were all young, too inexperienced. If only Darla hadn't staked herself, he thought, could've had her right here. She did like public places.

There was no sadness in his thoughts. There was only a slight pang when he thought of Darla, but it was the loss of nights spent gorging and making wild love in pools of blood that disappointed Angelus the most. 

He turned to the barkeep and the demon recoiled slightly. Yeah, he knew about Angel, but he also knew that the vampire before him was not the famous vampire with a soul, this was the legendary Scourge of Europe: Angelus.

"W-what can I do for you?" he stuttered.

"You could tell me where you think I could find someone to help me out with a little problem I've got," Angelus said, leaning forward and allowing his eyes to rest on the demon's neck as his fingers clawed slowly at the bar top.

"What problem could you have?!" the demon squeaked, stumbling back into the wall. 

"Pesky soul," Angelus shrugged, "I want to make sure I don’t get it back. Tastes kinda bitter."

"Well, I don’t kn-know what I could do about that…" the demon stuttered.

"You hear stuff," Angelus said, his tone conversational, "and I think you'd tell me anything you know, seeing as I'll kill you if you don’t."

The demon seemed to pale and pressed harder against the wall, straining to get away. He knew it was futile, Angelus would kill him before he took a step. Best to help where he could.

"Wolfram and Hart," he squeaked, "I hear they have an interest in you. I-I bet you could get a prevention spell or s-something off them."

"Really?" Angelus mused, then grinned, "thanks."

His arm lashed forward and grabbed the demon by the throat. Gripping the demon's lower neck in one hand and it's upper neck in the other, Angelus smiled in a mock-friendly way and said, gave a sharp twist and yank before letting the head drop to the floor. He pushed the headless body back and turned towards the tunnels.

"You were a big help."

***

Wesley wasn’t looking forward to entering the hotel. He had a sneaking suspicion that - because he was the book guy - everyone would expect him to know how to save Angel. The truth was, he didn’t. He knew the last time Angel lost his soul, Willow had returned it. But Willow was a witch; Wesley didn’t have that kind of power. Nor would he know where to start if he did. But he had a general idea about what they should do.

"Wesley!" Cordy cried, as he entered the hotel. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck; "thank God you're here."

He didn’t reply, merely dropped his bag and pulled her gently away. 

"Why have you brought a bag, Wes?" an extremely pale Fred asked quietly, indicating the bag by his feet.

"Safety in numbers," he replied, "and I thought I might need to do a lot of research and it was best Lottie and I stayed here, if that's all right?"

"Sure," Gunn shrugged, "it's not like the guy who owns this place can say no, as he's too busy going around killing people."

"Charles," Fred said and Wes was sure she meant her tone to be mildly scolding, instead it was frightened and Gunn sat down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"What are we going to do?" Lorne asked.

Wes glanced down at his daughter who was nibbling her lip nervously, seeming to sense the general terror.

"First things first," Wes said, giving himself a mental I told you so when he realised they expected him to have all the answers, "it's daylight. Angelus won't be able to do much now, this is our time. I suggested to Cordelia that we put a sanctuary spell on the hotel, like there was at Caritas."

"Yeah," Cordy nodded, "I forgot to tell you, Lorne."

Wes sighed and came down the stairs into the lobby, closely followed by Lottie.

"Cordelia, now is not the time to be forgetting anything," he almost snapped.

"I'm sorry, Wesley," she answered, an edge to her voice, "I was too preoccupied with the fact that Angel was gone, Angelus was back and it's all my fault!"

"Who's Angelus?" asked a small voice.

All eyes turned to Lottie and Wes gulped slightly.

"Fred, could you look after Lottie for me?" he asked, she nodded numbly and came over to the girl, leaning down to take her hand. Wes caught Fred's upper arm in a gentle grip as she made to pass, "if she asks again, don’t tell her. I think she grew fond of Angel. If she asks, tell her I'll talk to her later and not to worry."

Fred nodded again and led Lottie upstairs to one of the empty rooms.

"I'm sorry, Cordy," Wes said after a pause, his voice softening, "I didn’t mean to snap, but right now we have to stop Angelus and if possible get Angel back, we let our emotions interfere as little as possible."

"If possible?" questioned Connor, sitting up from his usual slouch, "what does that mean? We kill him?"

"No!" Cordy cried, her hand covering her mouth, "don’t say that, Connor! We're not going to kill him!" her gaze turned to Wesley, "and if you even suggest I'll kick your ass!"

"If possible?" Connor pressed, ignoring Cordelia's outburst.

"We should try to get Angelus, as crazy as it sounds," Wes explained slowly, working it through in his head even as he spoke, "that way we can prevent him killing anyone else. Then, we can contact Willow and hopefully -"

"Willow?" Connor asked.

"A witch from Sunnydale, she returned Angel's soul last time he lost it."

"Last time," Connor muttered in disgust with a snort.

Ignoring him, Wesley continued, "in the mean time, we place a sanctuary spell on this place and I think a cage would be in order."

"Cage?" Gunn asked, "I don’t think now's the time to be living out your kinky fantasies, English."

Wes allowed himself a slight smile.

"As kinky as my fantasies may be, Gunn," he answered good-naturedly, "none involve cages. The cage would be for holding Angelus until we can get hold of Willow. The "if possible" only applies if someone is in danger or re-en-souling him doesn’t work. That's when we'll have no other choice. Until then, Lorne, if you could see about the sanctuary spell while the rest of us start work on the cage. Cordy, if you could call Sunnydale…"

"Sure," Cordy answered and left for the office.

"I'll get right on it," Lorne said, sweeping toward the doors, "the homestead will be safe and sound anytime now."

"Until Angel kills us all," Connor said in a low voice.

Cordy froze on her way to office, but didn’t turn, unlike Lorne and Gunn who stared at the boy. 

"This isn't Angel," Wes told him firmly, "this is Angelus, Angel's demon, yes, but Angelus is not your father. However, if there is something you'd like to say, please, feel free."

"We shouldn’t be wasting our time with cages and spells and witches," Connor yelled, leaping up and approaching Wesley, "I thought you were supposed to be smart! We should kill him now so he can't kill anymore people! So he can't kill us!"

"If you don’t mind," Wesley hissed, pointing at Connor and glowering, "my daughter is upstairs and I don’t like the idea that she might think we could die. You're right, Connor, as friends of Angel's, Angelus will probably try to kill us. But he won't get the chance, because the sanctuary spell prevents violence, teams of us will be scouring the city for him and there will always be someone on watch here in case he returns. In other words, we'll be ready for him. Now, Lorne, please arrange the sanctuary spell and Cordy, if you could call Willow."

Connor almost growled as he spun on his heel and marched up the stairs to his room. Cordy watched him go with a furrowed brow before entering the office. Lorne disappeared out onto the streets and Gunn gave Wesley an appraising look. 

"Gotta hand it to ya, Wes," he said, "you sure put that boy down."

"Funny," Wes replied, "I was under the impression I rather pissed him off."

Gunn chortled and raised his hand. Instinctively, Wes found himself going along with their old handshake.

"I'll go see what I can do about steel bars for a cage," Gunn said, "you coming?"

"No, if you don’t mind, I'd better check Lottie's all right."

Gunn nodded and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

"Tell Fred I'll be back soon."

Wes nodded and mounted the stairs as Gunn left. He heard Fred's babbling chatter as he approached Fred's room and paused outside the door to listen to the interaction.

"… You could share with me," Fred was saying, "Cordy too, if you like, like a slumber party. We can have popcorn and movies and chocolate, it'll be fun. And then we can -"

"Fred," Lottie interrupted, "are we gonna die?"

"W-what?"

"I heard what Connor said… And dad looks scared… Is it bad?"

Fred stared at her, her mouth working but no words coming out. Her gaze ticked to the door where she saw Wesley and was visibly relieved.

"Fred," Wes said calmly, entering the room, "Gunn has gone for the steel bars. Maybe you could help Cordy…?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure. Of course," she said and scuttled from the room.

Wes approached his daughter, who was sitting on the edge of Fred's bed. He dropped to his haunches before her and smiled a little.

"You're not going to die, Lottie," he told her.

"Are you?" she asked.

"Nope," he shook his head, "no one's going to die, it's all going to be fine. I promise."

"But I heard Connor say -"

"Connor is wrong," Wes said firmly, "he's just agitated that’s all. It's because Angel -" he caught himself and looked down at his hands, "the problem - what we're all worked up over - is that Angel has changed. That’s all I'm going to say. We're worried about him, that’s all. That’s all you need to know. You and I are staying here until Angel returns and you're going to school tomorrow. See? Everything's fine. Ok?"

"You promise?"

"I promise," he gave her knee a reassuring squeeze, "and if you hear Connor saying anything more about dying, just remember he's a teenager. That's just how they are, all right?"

She smiled a little and nodded.

"Everything will be ok," she said.

"Exactly. Now, why don’t you -"

"Wesley!" Cordelia burst into the room, looking desperate; "we got a problem."

Fred hovered behind Cordy as Wes stood swiftly.

"I'll stay with her," Fred said, moving toward Lottie as Wes pushed Cordy out of the room and into the corridor.

"What's wrong?" he asked in a low voice, feeling panic rise within him. Something had to be wrong with Willow, that’s why Cordy was so upset. But what on earth -

"Willow's in England," Cordy burst out.

Ok, he figured something was wrong, but not that Willow was holidaying in England.

"What on earth is she doing there?" he asked.

"Well, according to Dawn, she went a bit nuts with the magick before the summer. She tried to go cold turkey, but then Giles and her girlfriend -"

"Girlfriend?" Wes interrupted, "what happened to Oz?"

"Wes, not the issue here. Anyway, Giles and Tara - that’s Willow's girlfriend - thought that Willow's addiction-"

"Addiction?" Wes repeated in disbelief.

"Wesley! Listen! Willow's addiction involved all this freaky dark magick so she couldn’t close off from it forever. Giles and Tara figured cold turkey wasn’t a good idea. That’s why she's in England, to learn to control the magicks. Her girlfriend is training with her and apparently it's really intense."

"Good God," Wes murmured, "and Dawn told you all this in only five minutes?"

"She talked really fast, she was about to go out with Buffy or something. But that’s not the issue, there's bigger things to think about other than the fact Dawn and Buffy are bonding."

"I know," Wes sighed and leaned against the wall beside her, "now we don’t have anyone to restore Angel's soul."

TBC…

Yep, I got some inspiration from "Angel," season 4. Also, sorry for my crappy Cordy. She's in a little bit of a state at the moment, she'll be normal soon. I hope! And I guess there's a lot of "huh? That didn’t happen!" about my Willow storyline. Well, the point is that this fic ties in with the final fic in my Spike/Anya trilogy ("All For One" archived at ff.net 'cause there's not much Wesley, more's the pity - shameless promotion, I know). In that, Tara didn’t die. Also, I kinda have a things about Tara's death. She was my favourite character and I like to stop her dying wherever I can!


	10. 10/25

***

Lilah was tired. She had been at the office all night. Oh sure, it was happy days for everyone else now that the senior partners were happy about Angel becoming Angelus. But it was Lilah that had to do the paperwork. She was the one that had to detail all they knew about how he lost his soul, what Angel Investigations were doing about it and what offers they thought would entice him to work with company.

But at least she was finished. With a sigh, she stood up slowly and started to gather her things together. Her office door opened and the punchable face of Gavin Park appeared.

"Lilah," he greeted, "fantastic news, don’t you think?"

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, too tired for a witty comeback, "get out, Gavin, I'm going home."

"I only wondered what you were planning to do about Angel becoming Angelus," he answered, walking into her office with a wide and entirely false smile.

"Like I told you, Gavin," she snapped, glaring at him, "Angelus is unpredictable and not a team player. I've done all the write ups on the situation and we will then offer Angelus aid in whatever he wants, with limits, of course. And you, you have a lot of paperwork to do."

"I didn’t actually mean Angelus," Gavin said, "I mean, all that was very interesting, but it’s nothing any of the rest of us couldn’t have put into action. I meant, what are you going to do about Angel becoming Angelus in regard to Angel Investigations. They'll get in the way."

"I'm aware of that," Lilah retorted, "but there's not much they can do -"

"Besides restore his soul."

"But there are infinite ways around that," Lilah smirked, "and a way around that is one of the things I intend to offer Angelus. Now, if you could get your ass out my way, I'm leaving now. Oh, I almost forgot," she opened a drawer and handed him a large file of paperwork. She had been saving pointless bits and pieces that weren't in any rush to be completed since she heard about Angel and Cordelia for just this purpose, "get this done please, Gavin," she smiled sweetly, "I think most of it requires reading. Who knows, it could take you weeks. But that’s all right, I'll soldier on with the Angelus project without you."

With a final smirk, she handed him the folder and swept out the office. 

But halfway down the corridor, she glanced down at the business card paper-clipped to the folder in her arms.

Angel Investigations. 213-555-0162

***

Wes stepped away from the half-built cage and allowed himself a smile.

"Well, Gunn," he said, "if this detective business doesn’t work out, we would make fine metal workers."

"Or just plain cage builders 'cause I think this is my limit," Gunn answered with a grin. His face became sombre however when he asked, "you think this'll hold him?"

"It should," Wesley answered slowly, "but just in case, we should have someone watching him with a tranquilliser gun."

"Or we could just kill him," Connor said, coming down into the basement, "instead of wasting our time."

"And I thought we went over this," Wes muttered.

"Ah, ignore him," Gunn returned.

"Wesley," Connor said, his scowl penetrating his voice when he realised he was being ignored, "Lottie's looking for you."

Wes turned slowly and raised his eyebrows at the teenager.

"You've spoken to her," he asked.

"She's a nice kid," he shrugged, stomping back up the stairs.

Gunn chuckled and nudged Wes in the arm.

"She's got us all charmed," he said, "hey, bring her down here. She'll probably be better at this than you."

"And she really couldn’t be worse than you, Gunn," Wes replied dryly, turning to the stairs.

"Hey, Wes," Gunn called, Wes turned and waited silently for a reply, "you're a good dad, man."

Wes smiled.

"Thank you, Charles."

He jogged up the stairs and out of the basement; catching sight of Lottie knelt before the weapons cabinet, watching Connor polish a sword.

"Dad," she said, looking round at him, "Connor won't let me help."

"I should hope not," Wes replied, "where's Fred?"

"She had to go get Lorne," Connor answered without looking up, "he called saying he was too drunk to get home."

"Oh, bloody hell," Wes muttered, "and Cordy?"

"Upstairs, asleep."

"Oh… Connor, are you all right?"

"Fine."

"We'll get Angel back, Connor. I promise you."

"I don’t really care," Connor snapped, standing up, putting the sword away and stalking away, "I'll check on Cordy."

Wes watched him with a sigh. Lottie stood and closed the doors of the weapons cabinet.

"I think he misses Angel," Lottie said matter-of-factly, "but he pretends he doesn’t."

"I see," Wes nodded, "well, just so long as you've been keeping an eye on him."

"Yep," she smiled, "can I come help with the cage?"

"Go on then," he said, offering her his hand and leading her down into the basement.

***

"Little help here, people!" Fred yelled, struggling to hold up the drunken Lorne.

Connor emerged from upstairs and took Lorne's other side as Wes, Gunn and Lottie ran up from the basement.

"Lorne, what happened?" Gunn asked, helping him sit down on the couch.

"The Furies were out," Fred said, looking at Lorne reprovingly, "their secretary -"

"Secretary?" Gunn asked, "Furies have secretaries?"

"Lovely floppy skinned demon," Lorne said, "was telling me all 'bout her cousin in Sunnydale. Remarkable."

"She offered him a drink and he decided it would be rude to say no. Hence…" Fred gestured to Lorne and rolled her eyes.

"Did you see the Furies?" Wes asked.

"No," Lorne answered, "busy women. People heard Angelus was back and they all figured they'd be on his hit list. Man's got a lot of enemies. Fred, sweetie, can I have another firewater?"

"No! I'll make you a coffee."

Lorne watched her go with a wistful smile.

"Lovely girl," he murmured, "let me know when she's free, Gunn."

"Hey, you go there again, I will have to kill you," Gunn promised him.

"I know, sugar lump," Lorne replied, "oh and Wesley? I made an appointment, the ladies with be here tomorrow at ten."

"Right," Wes murmured distractedly.

"What's up?" Connor asked.

"Well, if everyone was after sanctuary spells because Angelus is back, it would make sense that Wolfram and Hart know."

"Which isn't a good," Fred added, entering the group, handing Lorne his coffee and glaring at his disgusted look, "and who knows what they'll offer him to get him on their side?"

"Exactly," Wes nodded.

"I say we get to him first," Gunn said, "get the spell up and running and get him in here until that girl gets back from England."

"We can't wait that long."

The group turned to see Cordy descend the stairs.

"She's right," Lorne nodded, "so what do you see with those brown eyes of yours, Brown Eyes? Do you even see your visions with your eyes?"

"Are you drunk?" she asked.

"Very," he replied.

"Look, we get him in that cage," Cordy said, "but we can't just keep him there. He's intelligent, the longer we leave him in there, the surer he'll find a way out."

"What do you suggest?" Wes asked.

"I don’t know," she answered, pressing a hand to her forehead, "I could call Giles and ask him when he thinks Willow will be back. Or maybe he knows someone over here who could help us."

"Right," Wes nodded, noting her exhaustion; "I'll go call Giles now."

"I'll finish up the cage," Gunn said, bending down slightly to talk to Lottie, "you gonna help me, Squirt?"

"Ok. Come help, Connor," she said

The teenager shrugged, "I've got nothing better to do."

Gunn picked Lottie up, swung her around and they left for the basement, followed by Connor. Cordelia approached Lorne with a slight frown.

"Fred, I think we'd better get him to bed with a bowl. I'm not clearing his barf off the floor."

Wes smiled as the girls helped Lorne up the stairs, Cordelia's words, "Don’t you dare spew on me!" rang around the lobby as he entered the office. 

He had barely reached for the phone when it rang and he snatched it up, hoping it was Willow to say she was home and Dawn said they called.

"Hello?" he said, sitting down. Please be Willow. Please be Willow. 

"Wesley? It's Lilah."

TBC…


	11. 11/25

***

Wesley inhaled sharply at the sound of Lilah's voice. She didn’t speak for a moment and he was glad of it because her voice… It brought it all back.

"Hmm. You know that sinking feeling you sometimes get the morning after?… It arrived early."

That memory and many more besides tumbled through his mind and he sank back in the chair, his fingers clenching on the desk in front of him.  
"What do you want, Lilah?" he gritted, "I told you it was over."

"This isn't about us," she snapped, then sighed, "look, ok, maybe it is… I wanted to tell you that whatever you're gonna do about Angelus, do it quick. The company are working on offers to get him on our side and destroying the soul forever is one of them."

"That’s not possible," Wes argued, feeling a brief surge of panic, "you can't destroy a soul."

"The senior partners can," she answered grimly, "and they have a special interest in Angelus."

There was a silence and he expected her to put the phone down. But she didn’t, he guessed she had more to say.

"Why are you telling me this, Lilah?" he asked, frowning, wondering if this was some bizarre trick.

"Because…" her voice tailed off and then surged back to confident defiance, "because sooner or later, Angelus will come after you. And he will kill you. Maybe I don’t want that to happen."

"Li -"

But the phone had already been slammed down. Wesley lowered it back into its cradle and stood slowly, leaning heavily on the desk.

"What's up?" Cordelia asked, entering the office, "is Willow not going to be back for a while?"

"It wasn't Willow," he answered in a low voice, "it was Lilah. Wolfram and Hart know about Angelus. We have to move fast," he glanced out of the office and saw night descending through the main doors, "I'm going out."

"What?" Cordy asked in disbelief, "it's dark now, it's not safe! Angelus -"

"Is the reason I'm going," he answered, pulling on his jacket, "look after Lottie for me, see if you can contact Giles. I'll take Gunn with me."

"And what if something happens to you?" Cordy protested, following him as he strode to the basement to call Gunn, "what do I tell Lottie?"

"Tell her the truth," he fixed Cordy with a hard look, "that I died trying to do the right thing. It's not like I've never come close before."

She stood stunned outside the door of the basement and was still there when Wesley reappeared, followed by Gunn, who was frowning at him. Lottie came out last and Cordy scooped her up.

"If you see Connor," Wes said, in an almost clinically detached voice, "don’t let him come out after us."

"Connor's not with you?" Fred asked, coming down the stairs with Lorne after shutting all the upstairs windows.

"No," Gunn answered, "he said he was helping you two."

"Oh, God," Cordy moaned, "he's gone after Angelus."

"Bloody hell," Wes muttered, snatching up the tranquilliser gun, "that’s all we need."

He turned to the door, but spun back to face Cordy again. He walked over to them, his face softening for the first time since Lilah put the phone down on him.

"I won't be long," he told Lottie, "be good for Cordy, all right?"

She nodded and yawned.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To look for Connor."

She nodded once more and Wesley turned to leave, followed by Gunn.

"What's wrong with him?" Lorne asked, frowning at the figures that disappeared onto the sidewalk.

"Lilah," Cordy said, not looking at Lorne, "she called. Wolfram and Hart know about Angelus. I'm gonna call Giles."

She entered the office; setting Lottie down on the desk beside a pile of books she began to idly flick through and paused with the phone halfway to her ear.

Why is he acting like this because Lilah called? She asked herself, it's not like we didn’t know Wolfram and Hart would be after Angelus.

Think about it. Maybe it wasn’t what was said, but who said it, was the answer.

***

Gunn was getting more than a little pissed off with Wes's new attitude. 

"Y'know," he started, "maybe you should go back to cage building."

"What?" Wes snapped, almost glaring at Gunn.

"When you were cage building, you weren't being an asshole," Gunn retorted, "what the hell happened?"  
"There's no time for niceties," Wes answered, "Angelus is out there, killing at this very moment and pretty soon, we may not be able to stop him. Maybe I just realised that."

"Not be able to stop him?" Gunn asked, grabbing Wes's arm and pulling him to a halt, "what's that supposed to mean?"

"Wolfram and Hart are willing to destroy the soul if Angelus agrees to work with them," Wes explained testily, "if that happens, we all die. Every single friend of Angel's will die slowly and horribly. And there won't be a damn thing any of us can do. So you'll see why right now I think jokes are wasted."

"We'll get there before Wolfram and Hart," Gunn assured Wes as they started to walk again, scanning the area for any sign of Connor or Angelus, "and if we don’t, we'll just have to put a stake through his heart."

"And how many of us will die before we're able to do that?" Wes questioned, "Wolfram and Hart -"

"Y'know, you keep harping back to that," Gunn folded his arms, challenging Wes, "what's the real deal? Cordy says you get a call from Lilah and all of a sudden you're - oh my God. It's Lilah, isn't it?"

Wes opened his mouth to protest, but found that he really had nothing to say.

"We're you two… An item?" Gunn asked finally.

Wes chuckled darkly at that and shook his head.

"To be an item, Gunn," he started, "one would have to be in a relationship. Lilah Morgan doesn’t do relationships. It was just sex."

Gunn looked startled and stared at his friend, eyes wide.

"Just sex?" he repeated, "did you not learn about the consequences of 'just sex' with Lottie's mom?"

"Melissa and I," Wes said, glaring at Gunn, "were in an actual relationship. Lilah and I… I don’t know. It is just something that happened."

"Why didn’t you say anything?"

"It's not something I'm particularly proud of, Gunn."

"Do you love her?"

The direct question startled Wes and he frowned, pondering how to answer. He wasn’t sure he had ever thought about any feeling he had for Lilah. He always told himself it was just sex, you don’t love your enemy. He hadn't loved her, but there was something… Something that made it hurt when he told he it was over. Something that made talking to her on the phone like pouring salt into a wound. Something that was making him act like a complete jerk after talking to her.

"I think I started to," he admitted quietly, "I think I started to care about her, another couple of months and who knows? I don’t love her now. But I think I came close."

Gunn didn’t say a word.

"Aren't you going to tell me I'm insane?" Wesley asked, perturbed by Gunn's silence.

"Not when I think that’s Connor," he answered and Wes followed his gaze to the silhouette at the end of the alley. It was flying backwards through the air and hit the brick wall with a thud. Wes and Gunn ran to help him, but Wes grabbed Gunn's arm and pulled him to the wall when he saw the familiar figure appear from around a Dumpster and look down at Connor.

"Angelus?" Gunn asked in a low voice.

Wes nodded and lifted the tranquilliser gun, aiming it at Angelus's neck.

"I'll see you soon, boy," they heard Angelus say to Connor's crumpled form, they both heard the smirk in the voice.

Wes's finger tightened on the trigger. In the split second before he pulled the trigger, Angelus glanced toward them and grinned. As the dart flew toward him, he leaped up, grabbing onto a fire escape to haul himself up. They ran out from their hiding place and Wes tried to aim at Angelus's form as it raced up the fire escape.

When he reached the roof, Angelus looked down.

"The games don't start yet," he called, "but they will soon. Be patient."

He disappeared only seconds before the dart hit the air where he had been.

Cursing, Wes looked toward Connor.

"I think he's knocked out," Gunn said.

"Yes," Wes answered distractedly, returning his gaze to the rooftop, "we'd best get him back."

He helped Gunn lift him and together, they began to carry him back to the hotel.

"What's up, Wes?" Gunn asked, noting Wes's frown and his silence, "is this about Lilah? 'Cause that’s in the past and it's not like it's actually my business or anything -"

"It's not Lilah," Wes answered, "it was what Angelus said. The games will start soon."

"Great," Gunn huffed, "we got a psycho vamp wanting to torture us before he kills us."

"There is that and he'll probably use mind games," Wes replied, "it's what he's famous for. It's what I expected, but why wait? Why not get started now?"

Gunn looked at Wesley and read his expression as clearly as if the words had been scrawled across his forehead.

"Wolfram and Hart," he said.

 

TBC…


	12. 12/25

***

Cordelia and Fred gasped when Gunn and Wes dragged Connor into the hotel. 

"What happened?" Cordelia demanded.

"He found Angelus," Wes told her.

"He found Angelus's fist, he means," Gunn added, helping Connor onto the couch.

"How's Lottie?" Wes asked Fred.

"She's in bed, I told her you'd be back soon. She's ok."

"Good. Thank you for keeping an eye on her."

"What happened with Angelus?" Lorne asked, his eyes sweeping the area behind Fred and Gunn as though he expected to find Angelus.

"He ran," Wes said, "he told Connor he'd see him soon and as I shot the dart, he got away. He told us that the games haven't started yet, but they will soon."

"Yep, sounds like Angelus all right," Cordy muttered, pushing Connor's shirt up and eyeing the bruise blooming along his rib cage, "you think his ribs might be broken?"

"Maybe," Gunn shrugged, "but the kid heals fast, just wrap him up."

Wes had sunk down into one of the chairs, his fist under his chin. Cordy went to get the First Aid kit, her head bowed and her fingers clenched into fists.

"What's wrong?" Fred asked.

"Wolfram and Hart."

"Wolfram and Hart?" Lorne asked, eyebrows climbing, "they've gone after Angelus?"

"I, er, I had a call… from Lilah Morgan," he shifted uncomfortably and glanced up at Cordy who had reappeared and was listening as she wrapped a bandage around Connor.

"Why would Lilah Morgan call you?" Fred asked, frowning, "why would she want to talk to -" Gunn and Cordy shot her glances and she took a tiny step back, "oh."

She sank into a seat and was silent. She was vaguely aware of Lorne asking Wes if that meant what he thought it meant. But Fred was too shocked to listen to Wes admit his relationship with Lilah. Her world was coming to a standstill and part of it crumbled. She had always been so sure of Wesley. Even when she told him that Angel was right to blame him for Connor's abduction into Quortoth, she still believed Wes had had Connor's best interests at heart. But how had anything grown between Lilah and Wesley? How could Wesley let anything happen?"

"Fred," Wes said, looking at her, seeing how disappointed she was in him, "it was a very dark period in my life that’s over now. I'm sorry if you don’t like the fact that something happened between Lilah and I, but the fact is it did and there's not a lot I can do about it. But," he turned back to address the group; "at least it has afforded us some inside information. When Lilah called today, she told me that whatever we plan to do about Angelus should be done as soon as possible."

"Why?" Cordy demanded.

"I - I didn’t want to say before, I didn’t want to worry any of you -"

"Because that worked so well last time," Fred snapped. Wes glanced at her, hurt and she was immediately sorry, "Wes, I didn’t mean -"

"That doesn’t matter," he shrugged, "the point is, I learnt from that mistake which is why I'm telling you now that Wolfram and Hart will destroy the soul if Angelus agrees to work for them."

There was a stunned silence in which Cordy sank onto the couch beside Connor. Lorne shook his head and cleared his throat.

"T-that’s not possible," he stated, "a soul can't be destroyed, you know that, Wes."

"The senior partners of Wolfram and Hart can destroy the soul," Wes said, "which I think is probably the reason Angelus is keeping his distance. If he works out a deal with Wolfram and Hart and his soul is destroyed, that is when he'll come after us. And we'll only have one option."

"Kill him," Fred whispered, "oh my God."

"Which is why the sooner we find Angelus, the better," Wes told them, "but once we've got him, that doesn’t mean Wolfram and Hart will give up."

"He's right," Gunn nodded, "if the senior partners are involved, they won't just let him go."

"We've got to get through to Giles," Cordy said, "he must be able to give Willow a little break, right?"

"I hope so," Wes nodded.

"And if the witch can't get a break?" Lorne asked.

"Then I guess our only option is for me to find the spell and do it."

"Wes, you don’t have that kind of power!" Cordy protested, "when Willow did it, it took a lot out of her and she had strong magicks inside her even then!"

"Then we'd better hope Giles can spare her," Wes answered grimly.  
***

It was late afternoon and Lilah Morgan leaned back in her chair, her hands resting lightly on her desk, her thumb hovering over the emergency alarm button under her desk. She willed her breathing to be steady and kept a professional smile on her face.

"Lilah, get away from that button," her guest said, "fighting off security would annoy me," he spun around, slammed his hands onto the desk and grinned at her, "and you wouldn’t like me when I'm annoyed."

"I thought I wouldn’t like you when you were happy," she said, her voice deceptively calm as she crossed her arms, "but I think I prefer you to Angel, Angelus."

"Cut the compliments, Lilah, I'm not about to bend you over the desk like Angel did that time," she blushed slightly and squirmed uncomfortably as Angelus continued, "now that’s what I like to see. Anyway, I hear you can help me out."

"In exchange for you services," Lilah replied, feeling infinitely grateful when he went over to the blinds, "what is it you want our help in?"

"I was thinking a condo in Florida," he mused, then shot her a look of disdain, "that soul, I want you to get rid of it once and for all."

Lilah smiled.

"We can do that," she assured him, "but in exchange for your services to our company."

"Services?" he asked, returning to the chair opposite her desk, "tell me, would that include… killing people?"

"Oh yes," she nodded, "and then there's a nice big apocalypse we're planning. We could use your help in that."

He was silent for a moment, before he leaned forward and picked up her mug. He rolled it between his hands for a moment and smiled at her.

"And who would do this soul thing for me?" he asked pleasantly.

"A shaman," she told him, "he's incredibly strong, but if he can't do it, senior partners are able to work through this guy and that'll get the job done."

"Oh," he nodded and continued to roll the mug between his palms. For some reason, it was terrifying her. Suddenly, he squeezed and the mug cracked. He broke off a piece and ran his finger over the sharp edge. She didn’t even see his arm move when he threw the shard and it embedded in the wall behind her. She jumped and yelped, "I don’t like that idea, Lilah," he told her, "I don’t want to be anyone's whipping boy. But thanks for the info about that shaman, I think I can track down a guy who has connections to a big evil and Wolfram and Hart. That’s the only reason I'm not going to kill you now."

He stood up and strode to the door, chuckling as she cowered in her chair.

"What about Angel Investigations," she cried. He stopped and turned to look at her and she continued in an effort to fill the silence, "what if they return your soul before you can find the shaman? You'll be trapped inside Angel again. If you agree to work with us - we can even discuss the terms - we'll get you to the shaman today."

"Sorry, Lilah, I just don’t think you've got anything to offer me. But don’t worry, I'll find the shaman and just to make sure Angel's friends don’t restore my soul, I'll make sure they're too busy with something else."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Wouldn’t you like to know," he ran a hand over her cheek, stopping at her neck and squeezing slightly as he sniffed, "but if I tell you, you'll only warn your boyfriend and I can't have that. But you'll find out soon enough."

He let her go and left the office. She patted her hair with shaking hands and breathed slowly and deeply.

"Shit."

***

The light was fading fast as Wes hurried down the street, pulling Lottie along after him. She slurped her ice cream as she practically ran to keep up with him, but she didn’t complain. Her father had made her aware of the very real danger the night now held and she had no desire to be out in the dark.

Wes turned around a corner and kept to the light filled areas around the shops. With the sanctuary spell now in place, the guys were using the phones at the hotel to try and track down Giles. It seemed that since the last time Cordelia had spoken to Giles, he had taken Willow somewhere to work on her magick. It didn’t matter which friend they called, no one seemed to know - or was willing to disclose - his whereabouts.

Wesley was starting to become desperate. If the soul were destroyed, it would mean they would have to kill Angelus. Which meant losing Angel too. And however an effective back up team the rest of them were, the real strength lay in Angel. Wes wasn’t sure how they would cope without his vampire senses, strength and skill.

But he couldn’t dwell on the negative, right now; he just needed to get back to the hotel.

Ice cream, he thought incredulously, it had to be ice cream!

Fred had told him that Lottie was scared. Scared of what was going on and most of all scared that he wouldn’t survive. So he thought he should spend some time with his daughter. And somehow he had though Lorne's suggestion of ice cream sounded a good idea. He hadn't realised how far away the ice cream parlour was, or how long the queue would be or how long it would take Lottie to choose a flavour when told they were out of raspberry ripple.

He breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the hotel and he pulled Lottie into the courtyard.

"C'mon, we'll be safe once we're inside," he told her, "we've just -"

His words were lost in his shout of pain as a fist came out of nowhere and slammed into the base of his spine. A bit harder and his spine could have cracked. The pain made him feel sick and he caught himself on his hands as he fell to the ground.

"Run!" he told Lottie, trying to get up.

Her ice cream dropped to the floor as she stared in horror up at the vampire. As she turned to run, Wes saw the vampire go to grab her. He wrenched a stake from his pocket and pushed himself to his feet, somewhat shakily, his back aching and ran at the vampire. But a fist to the stomach knocked him down and the vampire reached forward after his stumbling daughter. Wes pulled a revolver from his pocket and aimed it at the vampire's forehead. Lottie was clamped under the vampire's arm, tears running down her white face as she kicked.

"Well, you're just full of surprises, aren't you?" Angelus sneered, kicking Wes hard in the crotch and stamping on his wrist until he dropped the gun.

Lottie struggled, but seemed horror-struck into silence as Angelus kicked the gun out of reach of Wes's grasping fingers.

"Lottie," Wes gasped, craning his neck to see into the hotel. But the others were in the offices, with phones pressed to their ears, unaware of what was going on outside.

Wes struggled to sit up and Angelus aimed a kick at Wes's chest, knocking him back again and leaving him gasping for breath.

"No!" Lottie cried, tears running down her face.

"Aah," Angelus cooed, running a finger down her cheek as she leaned away from him and he smirked at Wes, "never forget, Wesley," he told him, "the sins of the father are revisited on the - well, daughter. But what does that matter?"

With a final cruel laugh, he kicked Wes in the jaw.

The last thing Wes saw was Angelus turning, his coat swirling and his daughter kicking in the vampire's arms. There was nothing he could do.

Then the whole world went black.

TBC…


	13. 13/25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friend of mine pointed out that I had used Lottie from this fic (well, kinda) in another fic (the final in my Spike/Anya trilogy called "All For One"). Which is why Cordy's explanation as to what happened in Sunnydale in Chapter 9 different to the series. In the Spike/Anya trilogy, things didn’t go quite so far as they did in season 6.

Author's Note: A friend of mine pointed out that I had used Lottie from this fic (well, kinda) in another fic (the final in my Spike/Anya trilogy called "All For One"). Which is why Cordy's explanation as to what happened in Sunnydale in Chapter 9 different to the series. In the Spike/Anya trilogy, things didn’t go quite so far as they did in season 6.   
***

He remembered steel. Cold, hard and glinting as it sliced into his neck. 

He remembered a warm, soft bundle. Tightening his hand around it as it was pulled from his grasp.

He remembered blood. Gushing, hot and sticky, staining his hands.

He remembered screams. A little girl kicking out, tears running down her face as she found her voice through her fear. 

But it hadn't happened like that. When Connor was taken, there was no little girl. There was no screams, no sneering vampire. Only the cold, hard ground and the sense that he was going to die.

His eyes fluttered and he dimly made out the shapes of people peering down at him. He groaned as he tried to sit up. Hands pushed him back and he complied, the pain in his back, stomach, crotch, wrist, chest and jaw only lessened when he sank against the bed.

He blinked and focused on the people around him. Fred, Gunn, Cordy, Lorne and even Connor peered down at him; their expressions ranging from fearfully tear stained to shocked sadness.

The images he had relived during his concussion rose up again, the girl's face the most prominent.

"Lottie?" he asked, feeling his jaw ache around the bruise. There was silence from the group as they exchanged glances; "you didn’t get him, did you?"

"Tried," Gunn said, head lowered, "but we didn’t know what was happening until we heard her screaming. By then, he was too far away, I couldn’t get a proper aim."

Wes sat up, pushing Cordy's hands away and struggling against the pain in his body.

"He beat you pretty bad," Connor said, attempting - Wes guessed - to make him feel better, "he could've broke your spine, you couldn’t do anything."

"I know that, I was there," Wes snapped, "we've got to stop him. Forget about Willow, we kill him. Before he hurts my daughter."

"But, Wesley -" Cordy started.

"No," he interrupted, "I don’t care how much you love him, I'm not willing to sacrifice my daughter so you can get your boyfriend back!"

"You think I'd ask you to do that?" she asked in a low, hurt voice.

"I know you want us to stick to the plan. Hunt him, lock him up and get Willow to re-en-soul him. But I'm sick of waiting. God knows what the bastard's done to her by now."

He stood up, grabbing hold of Gunn as he swayed slightly.

"What do you want us to do?" Fred asked quietly.

"I've got a call to make," Wes said, "but, Gunn, Connor, if you could start scouting out warehouses, empty buildings. You've got daylight on your side now. Find Lottie, you understand? Don’t attempt to fight him, just try to get her out. I can't afford to lose the people I need to help me. Just… Try, please?"

Gunn and Connor nodded and left the room quietly.

"Wesley…"

"Cordelia, I've told you -"

"I wasn’t going to say that," she sniffed a little, fighting tears, "I understand we can't save him now. I just thought that Gunn and Connor wouldn’t be enough, you told them not to kill him, you can't think you can."

"I wish I could be the one to stake him," Wes answered, hobbling toward the door, "but I'm no where near capable, I'm not strong enough. That’s why I'm going out when I've made my call."

He left Cordy, Lorne and Fred and made his way slowly down the stairs to the office. 

"No!"

The word - and her screams - echoed around his mind. His jaw clenched as he remembered Angelus running a finger down her cheek. He remembered his words.

"The sins of the father are revisited on the - well, daughter. But what does that matter?"

God, he should have known. Angelus didn’t care about Connor, but that didn’t mean he was above using what happened to Connor as a twisted torture. A torture that would prove most effective. And a torture - Wes felt sickened by the very thought - Angelus would enjoy.

He reached the office and snatched up the phone, dialling a familiar number.

"Hello, Lilah Morgan of Wolfram and Hart," the voice had a slight quaver to it that evened out toward the end, replaced by the same bravado until you forgot you heard vulnerability in the voice.

"Lilah, it's Wesley -"

"Jesus, Wesley! Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to call you since yesterday afternoon, but the lines have been engaged! I wanted to tell you that I had Angelus in here, he knows about a shaman that can help him now. He refused to work for Wolfram and Hart. He said he'd make sure you guys would be too busy to worry about his soul."

"I know."

"What?"

"He's keeping us busy, Lilah. He took my daughter last night. I've only just come round."

"Shit," she breathed, "God, Wes, I'm sorry. I tried to call you -"

"I understand that," Wes answered, "so I suppose you were trying to help?"

"Wes, I'm not a completely heartless bitch… Not when it comes to you."

Wes felt a rush of affection at the hesitant admission and gained confidence that she may grant his request.

"I know you're not," he replied gently, "which is why I called you. I want you to help me."

"I don’t know if I can, Wes. The company's not going to let me have Angel killed."

"I wasn’t going to ask that, I've got a way around that. I wanted to ask if there is anything you can do to protect Lottie?"

"Lottie? That’s your, er, daughter?"

"Yes. Can you help me?"

"What were you thinking?"

"A spell. Something that means he can't harm her. You've read the files, Lilah, you know what he's capable of. God knows when we'll find him and when we do, we can't be sure he hasn't hidden her somewhere else. But, if you could put a protection spell on her, all I've got to do is find her."

There was a long pause, then Lilah sighed.

"At school, did you register her under Wyndham-Pryce?"

"What? Lilah, this is hardly the sort of thing -"

"Look, do you want my help or not?"

"Of course I do, but -"

"So, is she registered under Wyndham-Pryce?"

"Yes -"

"What's her mother's maiden name?"

"Roberts."

"I think we can make that work. I've got a client under Roberts. I'll say he's got an illegitimate child that he wants a protection spell put on and no one else apart from me, the person doing the spell and the partners should know in case his wife finds out. I'll get it done within the hour."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

"This is the last favour I do for you," she told him firmly, any vulnerability dissolved under her professional manner, "and I'm only doing this 'cause Angelus threw a mug at me. But I'm ok, not that you'd care."

"I -"

"Save it. I'll call you when it's done. Go be a hero, Wesley."

And with that the phone was set down. Wes sighed, old feelings for Lilah swirling in his stomach along with anxiety and anger. Fred, Cordy and Lorne peered into the office.

"Is everything ok?" Lorne asked uncertainly.

"Yes," Wes answered, grabbing his jacket from where he had left it on the chair the night before, "I called Lilah," his eyes alighted on Fred for a moment, "and she has agreed to put a protection spell on Lottie. She'll be safe until we find her."

"Where are you going?" Fred asked, as he walked past them, limping toward the doors, "you're hurt, let one of us come with you."

"I'm fine," he grimaced, "I'm standing. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Get Gunn to call me with any news."

"Where're you going?" Cordy yelled as he went out into the morning sunshine.

If he heard, he didn’t bother to answer.

***

Angelus stretched and glanced at his watch. 8 O'clock. Playtime, he thought.

He had brought Lottie to the place he was staying after he had kidnapped her. He tied her up and left her in a dark little closet - just like Wes's daddy did all those years ago - and went to slept. 

Angelus liked to take things slow. He had learnt years ago that a child's imagination could conjure far worse things than an adult's could. He knew for the time being that the longer he left her alone with only her thoughts, the more terrified she'd be, the louder she'd scream, the longer she'd beg.

So, he fought his desire to toy with the little girl, saving the satisfaction of her first screams for the boring daylight hours. He would move on when night fell, he doubted Angel's friends would find him today, however, he had no doubt they would eventually, and there was no need to let the games end too soon.

He stood up and left the room, entering the room with the closet next door. He opened the door of the closet and sure enough, the scent of terror was thicker than the night before. Her face was sticky to touch from her tears and her eyes were wide. He bent closer, running his finger down her neck, remembering the taste of innocence. Then he raised his eyebrow at the girl. Beneath the scent of fear - so faint he almost missed it - was a scent of hate. He chuckled. He would enjoy breaking this one.

He hauled her out of the closet and tossed her to the ground. Then he frowned down at her. 

"What's missing?" he mused, then tugged the gag from her mouth with fierce violence, bruising her pale skin, "oh yeah. It's no fun if you don’t scream."

She whimpered, using her feet to push herself away from him. He smiled at her, before dropping to his knees and turning her over to take hold of her hands. He pulled on a finger and pressed down on her nail.

"You bite your nails?" he asked and when she didn’t reply, he continued, "well, what little girl doesn’t? But, y'know, you'll ruin them…" he slid into game face and turned her head so she could see, "so why don’t we pull 'em out and start again?"

She screamed, struggling in his grip as she kicked out. He laughed at her and dug his nails in her arms. He pressed harder until blood oozed up from where his own nails cut her skin. 

But then pain zinged up his arms, sudden and fiery. In a flash of white light, his arms were thrown off her and she was catapulted to the opposite end of the room. She hit the wall and he stared in disbelief at his hands. He approached her menacingly, sniffing the air again.

"Well, I've not become a boring asshole with bad dress sense," he said, "so I'm guessing that wasn’t my soul. It must be something from daddy to you."

He hunkered down before her. He could smell magick, a distant power hanging around her like an aura. Slowly and gently, he sat her upright and eased her bent legs out in front of her. Nothing happened. Then he pulled back a hand and swung it at her face. She let out a shriek and turned her head away, but another flash pushed his hand off course.

"I guess daddy's put a protection spell on you, kid," he said, "count yourself lucky, you get to keep your fingernails…" his frowned eased into a grin, "but there are other ways. Did your dad ever tell you about a girl called Drusilla…?"

***

Wes mounted the stairs of the apartment block slowly. He paused on the landing, leaning against the wall for support, willing his knees back to solidity. He pulled a crumpled bit of paper, torn from the phone directory from his pocket. Another flight of stairs, he thought with a groan.

He pushed himself up the stairs, gripping the rail and pausing twice. When he reached the top of the stairs, he mobile phone rang. Tugging it out of his pocket, he answered quickly.

"It's me," Lilah's voice said, "it's done."

"Thank y -"

But she put the phone down before the company could log the call. He felt some of the anxiety lift from his shoulders, but he wasn’t stupid, he was sure Angelus would find another way to hurt Lottie, even if it wasn’t physically. 

He reached the apartment he was looking for and knocked. She had to be home. It wasn’t like she had a job anymore. Well, hopefully not one where she worked the kind of hours she had before.

The door opened and the woman stared at him for a moment, taking in his bruised jaw.

"Don’t I know you?" she asked, "you work for Angel, don’t you?"

"Not anymore," he replied, "could I come in? It's very important, Detective Lockley…"

 

TBC…


	14. 14/25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanna say that I got the judge idea from the Buffy/Angel crossover graphic novel (which also includes Pike from the original movie!) called "Note From The Underground." I have changed the name of the judge and her personality, but I owe the general idea to the graphic novel.

Author's Note: I just wanna say that I got the judge idea from the Buffy/Angel crossover graphic novel (which also includes Pike from the original movie!) called "Note From The Underground." I have changed the name of the judge and her personality, but I owe the general idea to the graphic novel.

***

Kate Lockley had only been back in LA a month and she was still unpacking. After her failed suicide attempt, she had left LA, wanting to settle elsewhere. But she found she was never comfortable elsewhere. She had lived her whole life in LA. It took her a while to realise that her whole life had been the force. When she finally got that, she returned and was in the process of setting up her own private investigations company. A company that would only deal in the very un-supernatural. In fact, the plain old ordinary.

Not that she had forgotten what the night hid from most peoples eyes, but she did not seek it out, she was not capable of fighting it and she'd rather leave that kind of thing to Angel. She carried a stake, intending to try and help should anything out of the ordinary appear, but she wouldn’t listen out for the weird and wonderful.

But it looked like fate had intervened and led the weird and wonderful to her door.

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce entered her apartment in an agitated state and she could barely see any resemblance to this man - tired looking and looking like he hadn't had a shave that morning - to the man she had met in passing almost two years ago.

"Y'know," Kate said, frowning at him, "I'm not Detective Lockley anymore."

"I know," Wes nodded curtly and looked at her, "Ang -" he caught himself and clenched his fists tightly as he changed what he had been about to say, "I heard. But I hope you still have contacts?"

"Yeah, I've been re-building old bridges since I got back to LA," her frown deepened as he started to pace, "why?"

Wes stopped in his pacing and sighed, fixing her with a stare as he wondered where to begin, "Detective Lockley -"

"Kate," she interrupted.

"Kate. You understand about the demons and vampires, don’t you?"

"Yeah," she nodded, then raised her eyebrows, "why? What's wrong?"

"Are you aware of Angel's curse, the one regarding his soul?" Wes asked, praying to God that she knew because he didn’t have time to explain it to her and he couldn’t afford to be rude if he wanted her on his side.

"I read up on it. Why -" her breath hitched and she stepped back to lean against the wall, "oh God, he's Angelus again, isn't he?"

"I'm afraid so," Wes answered grimly, though it was almost a growl, "we were planning on capturing him and locking him up until an acquaintance of mine - a witch - can come and restore his soul," he took a deep breath and straightened up before adding, "but then my daughter got caught up in this."

"Daughter? I didn’t know you had a daughter."

"I'm rather new to the idea myself. I only found out about her a few weeks ago when her mother gave her to be to look after so she could go to Florida."

"What do you mean, your daughter got caught up in all this?" Kate had an idea what he had meant, but she wanted to hear it before she believed it.

"Last night, Angelus took her."

"Oh, my God," she sank against the wall a little more and tried to take it in as Wesley went on, his voice speeding up.

"I've had a protection spell put on her, but Angelus has other ways of torturing people, as I'm sure you've read. None of us are strong enough to take Angelus."

"But you said you were going to capture him," she pointed out.

"We intended to tranquillise him, a lot easier than firing a bolt at him from a crossbow. He'd see that coming."

"You mean you -"

"Want the bastard dead? Yes," he replied fiercely, though there was a sting in the tail of this admission, he's not Angel anymore, he reminded himself, and he's not your friend. Wes stopped pacing again and faced her, "I believe you can help me."

"How? I mean, if none of you guys can take him…?"

"I want you to help get Faith out of jail," he told her bluntly.

"What?" she cried, "you want me to get a murderer released to kill another murderer?"

"Why not?" he asked with a shrug.

"Because Faith is a killer. She's not safe to be put back on the streets!"

"You have no comprehension of what a Slayer is," he stated in a low, firm voice as he took two more steps toward her, "Faith could break out of that jail whenever she wanted, the only thing stopping her is herself. She has repented."

"Didn’t she torture you? Why are you Team Faith all of a sudden?"

"It's not sudden. I've called up to inquire after her a couple of times. It's partly my fault that she's the way she is now. And I believe she's trying to find redemption. I have long ago forgiven her for what she did to me and right now, I couldn’t give a rat's arse what she's done, I want my daughter back!"

"I understand that. But there's no way I can let a murderer -" 

He had been holding in his feelings since he came to back at the hotel. But when he saw how determined Kate Lockley was about not helping get Faith out of jail, his only hope began to fade and his emotions stumbled out into the open in a torrent of babbling words.

"You don’t have children," he told her, his previously chill manner collapsing into desperation, "up until a couple of weeks ago, I was certain I didn’t have any either. Do you know how much my life has changed in those couple of weeks? And all because of one tiny little girl. I went through a dark time this summer, I was screwing Lilah Morgan and I had a girl chained in my closet. I'd forgotten what it was like to feel. But then this little girl came into my life and I loved her immediately. You know, I don’t have one single picture of her, but I've got a clear picture of her in my head. I don’t even have such clear a picture of her mother! I can tell you she has three dimples and a missing front tooth. And you know the worst thing? I didn’t once tell her I loved her. I barely ever hugged her! I always swore I would never be like my father, I promised myself that if I had children, I would show them affection whenever I could. Yet, I've hardly ever hugged her or kissed her or tickled her! I was just getting to know her, Kate, and now I could lose her. So, yes, I know what Faith has done; I know the worst things she did because she did most of them to me. But right now, I don’t care because she is my only hope of saving my little girl. And I promise you, Detective Lockley, if you don’t help me, I will break her out of jail myself!"

Kate gulped and reached out her hand to touch the shoulder of the man shaking before her. He pressed his fists against his forehead and she squeezed his shoulder reassuringly before saying in a low voice:

"I hear Faith's been a good girl, not started any fights, only fighting to defend herself. She's rarely been officially reprimanded; she's responded well to counselling… She's probably a good candidate for parole, so long as she's got somewhere to go."

Wes removed his fists from his head and stared at her. 

"She, er, she can stay at the hotel," he told her.

Kate nodded.

"Dad had a friend, a judge. She's a pretty tough woman, been in this business a long time. She knows stuff about every influential person on the force, not to mention a couple of minor politicians. She's a good person, but not exactly above blackmail. She owed my dad a favour that he never cashed in. I guess she owes me now. I'll call her, see what she can do."

"How long will it take?" he asked urgently as he followed her to the phone.

"Usually? A while. This time? Tomorrow, but you never know," Kate glanced at her watch before dialling the number, "it's early, you could be seeing Faith sometime this evening. Which, so I hear, is prime vampire time - Oh, hello, could I speak to Judge Margaret Holmes? It's Kate Lockley, Trevor Lockley's daughter. It's urgent… Thank you…" 

"Thank you," Wes told her sincerely before she started talking to Judge Margaret Holmes.

***

Wes had returned to the hotel after seeing Kate and he was making sure there was always at least one telephone free for when the Judge Margaret Holmes called. She had promised Faith would be out tomorrow, Kate had told him when she called two hours after his visit, but she would try to rush it through so Faith would be released tonight.

He hadn't told anyone about Faith. He most certainly didn’t tell Cordelia. The others had heard of Faith, Cordelia had known her, in fact, she had been rather intimately acquainted with Faith's elbow. Which was part of the reason Cordelia harboured a grudge against the Slayer. Another reason was that thanks to Faith's surrogate father - or "Sugar Daddy" as Cordelia would most likely put it - Cordelia had lost friends at Graduation. He guessed she still bore a grudge against Faith for being even remotely connected to yet another Sunnydale High fiasco masquerading as a perfect high school moment.

Gunn and Connor had found nothing, despite being out for several hours and beating up a fair few demons and the occasional human for information. It would seem that every demon - and human, for that matter - who had any idea about the truth behind LA, were more scared of Angelus than they were of the Angel Investigations team.

The phone rang and he jumped, his hand darting out to answer it.

"Mr Wyndham Pryce?" asked an imperious woman's voice.

"Yes. Judge Margaret Holmes, I presume?"

"Indeed. I'm calling to tell you that the girl will be released within an hour. I had to pull a few strings, but there you have it."  
"Thank you, I don’t know how I can ever repay you -"

"Luckily for you, you don’t have to. I have fulfilled a debt to the Lockley's. Good luck, Mr Wyndham Pryce."

"Thank you."

He put the phone down and sat for a moment, basking in the relief that he had a Slayer on his side now. 

He stood up, grabbed his car keys and left the hotel without so much as a word to the curious faces that watched him go.

TBC…


	15. 15/25

***

Faith looked about her, figuring that Angel had to have something to do with her sudden release. Which meant he must have come to meet her. There was no sign of Angel. Her eyes rested on the lone figure leaning against a car in a swiftly gathering dusk that herded families inside out of the chill the night brought with it. Inside was the only safe place, she knew that, but she was as yet unaware of how much the danger had increased.

She glanced around once more, then returned her gaze to the figure. It was too slender to be Angel, yet somehow familiar. The man looked up and Faith felt something akin to fear clench in her gut. Yes, that body was familiar. She had tortured that body for hours once. She had watched pain flare in those blue eyes and laughingly wiped blood from his lips when he bit his lip or tongue to stop himself screaming. But rather than give into those memories, she chuckled instead.

"You gotta be kidding me," she said, approaching Wes, "you here for me or is there some other convict you're meeting?"

"Faith," Wes greeted in a flat voice, turning to get in the car, "get in. I'll explain on the way."

She hesitated. The last time she had seen him, he was staring at her in disbelief from across a crowded police station. Before that, he was helping her get away from the Council. Before that… Well, let's just say that she regretted a lot of things and what she did to him was way up there.

But there was something about his manner, a quiet urgency. She guessed there was a major reason he had come for her. She figured that she was his last resort. A man who wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of hearing him scream or beg wouldn't turn to her for just anything.

So she got in the car. She had barely closed the door before the started the engine and started forward.

"In a hurry?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. 

"I thought you said something about explaining on the way?"

He shot her a glance before returning his gaze to the road, his knuckles turning white as he clenched the steering wheel.

"Angelus has returned."

She almost flinched in shock. Then she looked at him, noting how his knuckles whitened and his jaw tightened. She was almost afraid to ask, but she wanted all the details. The messy bits, a goddamn diagram to help her understand how the hell Angel could have let this happen.

"How?" was all she managed.

"The curse was broken."

"You mean Buffy…?" Faith couldn’t believe it though. They wouldn’t…

"Cordelia."

"Queen C?!" she screeched.

"Yes."

She sank back in the seat and folded her arms; her thoughts running riot in the silence. She had no time to be uncomfortable in Wes's presence; she was too shocked to care about that anymore.

"So why me?" she asked after a moment, "why not Buffy? Why can't you handle it?"

"Buffy has a Hellmouth to attend to and you weren't exactly busy. We were handling it, we were planning to re-ensoul him," he shrugged and made a sharp left that made her bang against the door. He offered her an apologetic glance and she frowned.

"What changed?" she asked, rubbing her arm. She figured he got tired of waiting. She thought maybe they had decided waiting until they could re-en-soul him wasn’t an option, too many people could fall victim to him before they could do the spell. 

Nothing in the world could have prepared for his revelation.

"He kidnapped my daughter."

***

Wes entered the hotel, striding to the top of the steps that sloped into the lobby. The gang looked up sharply, relieved to see him. Then Faith entered cautiously behind him. Cordy was the first to notice her. Her eyes alighted on her only long enough to register her presence, then they snapped back to Wesley, wide and incredulous.

"That’s why you went out after calling Lilah? Tell me you didn’t do anything illegal for her."

"You've forgotten my name already, Cor?" Faith asked, smirking, "after all we've been through."

"Meaning the betrayal, your Sugar Daddy ruining Graduation, the complete screw up you made of everything you touched. Oh, not to mention that time you shot a poison arrow at Ang -" she stopped short and looked over at Wes, "and all the other badness."

"Get used to it, Cordy," Wes told her, the words snappish, but his tone gentle, telling her he didn’t mind her slip of the tongue, "she's staying here."

"Oh," Fred smiled at Faith; "shall I make up a room?"

"That would be appreciated, Fred," Wes nodded, "now, laying our cards on the table - and I apologise for this, Faith, but I think we need to be honest - Faith has been in jail."

"For what?" Lorne asked, eyeing Faith warily.

"Murder, assault," Faith shrugged, "y'know, they never really bothered with the theft charges."

"Murder?" Connor asked.

"As in the killing," Faith mimed stabbing, "with the death and stuff."

If these people were going to hate her for being a reformed murderer, she sure as hell wasn’t going to show it got to her. Wes pressed her hands down.

"She has, however, repented. She gave herself up to the authorities and has been in jail for the past two years."

"She's a Slayer," Cordy added, "I guess you figured she was our only hope, Wes?"

"Yes."

"Slayer?" Gunn raised his eyebrows, "who was much with the murder?"

Wes nodded. 

"So, did Wes tell you what was going on?" Fred asked, smiling a little uncertainly at Faith.

"You mean the daughter thing? Yeah, I'm up on it," the collective stares were starting to unnerve her, so she turned back to her ex-Watcher, "Wes, you think I could talk to you?"

Wes looked a little startled, but nodded slowly and led her to the office. Cordy looked around at the group, more than a little disgruntled. Everyone seemed slightly uncertain about the situation. All except Connor, who was gazing in wide-eyed fascination after the swaying leather clad hips of the Slayer. 

With a glare, Cordy nudged him in the arm and he blushed, lowering his eyes.

***

Wes waved Faith into a chair and leaned against the wall, silently waiting for her to begin.

"Look, Wes," she started, "thanks for springing me -"

"I didn’t spring you, Faith. I asked for a favour. This is the result."

"Yeah, fine. But, I want you to know something…" she tailed off and studied her hands.

"What?" Wes asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Angel was the only one who was there for me before. If it wasn’t for him, I might… I don’t know. I might be out there now, screwing up my life even more… Or dead… I'm not exactly sure I'll be able to kill him."

Wes took a deep breath and sat down opposite her. He ran a hand over his hair and sighed.

"I understand that, Faith," he said.

She glanced up and blinked in shock. Understand? Ok, she heard wrong, right? She expected fury, she expected him to beg her to kill Angelus. She expected anything but this weakened shock. Well, he was just all shiny and new.

"You… understand?" she asked.

"Yes. He was the only one who ever tried to reach out to you. The only one who ever believed maybe you had some redeeming quality… I understand it would be hard for you to kill him… I'm aware of how that might feel. I filled you in on the situation, about Connor and Lottie and everything. I've only just got my friend back, found my daughter and my life was actually starting to resemble something I could live with, then out of nowhere everything went to hell again. And, strange as it may seem, you happen to be the only hope of getting my daughter back."

"Way to dump a load on a girl, Wes," she smiled grimly.

"No more of a load than when you discovered you were a Slayer and as I recall, that didn’t seem to faze you," his eyes blazed and his demeanour changed, he fixed her with a hard look and continued, "in fact, you rather revelled in it and your power. I'd even go so far as to say you abused it."

She glared at him.

"I didn’t want to fight with you," she warned.

"I don’t want you to fight with me either," he snapped, growing angrier as he leaned forward, "I want you to fight Angelus! I want you to do your duty and save my daughter! You think I'd turn to you of all people if I had any other choice? And as to you not knowing if you'd be able to kill him after what he did for you, do you even remember Buffy? The Buffy and Angel love story? She killed him because she had to. It was what she had to do."

"She would have saved him if she could!" Faith said, her voice rising. Aware that she was losing her cool, she gripped the arms of the chair and took a deep breath, "how about I catch him?"

"What?!"

"You said you were planning on catching him and getting Willow to re-en-soul him, right? So how about I find him, knock the crap outta him and lock him up in this cage of yours? That'll save your kid, right?"

"Lottie. Her name is Lottie," he gritted.

"Fine. I'll save Lottie and we can get Angel back. Looks like a sweet deal to me."

"Is there any other way I can make you change your mind?" Wes asked, "because, call me petty, but I want him to pay for taking her and for any pain he may have caused her."

"Wesley, Angel's still in there. Don’t you save people, or did you give that up when you gave up shaving?" Faith asked, then leaned toward him, "you want him to pay and I get that. So I promise it'll hurt when I beat his ass."

Wes was silent. He knew fighting her on this was pointless, he wouldn’t win. And every moment he spent arguing with her was another moment that Lottie spent with Angelus. He was willing to do anything so long as he got his daughter back in the end.

"All right," he nodded and she smirked over her victory. She was still the same, confident and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. Perhaps he was wrong to think she would have changed so much, "you haven't changed," he stated after a moment's study.

Her smirk faded and she seemed to truly see him once more now the argument was over. There was something in her eyes, something scared and horror-struck as she looked at him. She averted her eyes and pulled at her fingers as she stood up.

"Yes I have," she told him quietly.

His expression softened at her discomfort and he nodded in empathy.

"So have I," he confided, standing to face her.

Faith changed her stance. The fingers she had been pulling at splayed out as she placed her hand haughtily on her hip as a shield between her and an emotionally intimate situation. She was usually ok with intimacy. Emotional intimacy, bonding, anything to do with connecting with anyone beyond the physical, especially with an old victim, was not something she was particularly in favour of. So she shrugged before going on to end the conversation.

"Stubble, less gel, glasses not surgically attached. Yeah, I noticed," she shrugged again.

"Huh. I actually expected you to see a little deeper than that," his look was almost disappointed that she hadn't understood and he made to leave the office, "I'll get Gunn and Connor and we'll go out for a search," he added tersely.

Suddenly aware that she had hurt his feelings and figuring she had hurt him more than enough before, she grabbed his arm.

"Pain. Courage. Less uptight. You're all grown up. I noticed that too."

His eyes raked over her body in a way she could never imagine the old Wesley having done.

"You too," he said finally.

TBC…


	16. 16/25

***

They were awkward. She should be used to it by now. She guessed she deserved it. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. These guys didn’t know her, they heard a few horror stories and they figured she couldn’t be trusted. They didn’t know what drove her to it, they hadn't seen anything. Hell, not even Wesley knew what happened before Sunnydale. 

She faced Gunn, Wes and Connor and put her hands on her hips.

"Ok, if we're gonna work together, you need to back off my past, got it? I was what I was, but I've changed. People do, it's a human thing. So, if any of you reckon you can't trust a reformed convict, turn around and walk away, 'cause I don’t go out there with people I think might stab me in the back."

She waited. Gunn glanced at Wes who nodded and turned back to Faith. 

Connor however, needed no confirmation from Wesley.

"I got your back," he told her.

She smiled at him, the sexy smile she reserved for guys in bars and grabbed a crossbow.  
"Then lets go hunt us an asshole."

***

Angelus pushed the body to the ground and wiped his mouth. He glanced at a smear on his thumb and grinned at Lottie who sat in frozen terror, unable to look away. He fell to his knees before her and held up his blood stained thumb.

"Y'know," he said, "some people think blood's yucky. But it's actually quite tasty. Tastes like - well, not chicken, but that’s what everyone says."

He ran his thumb roughly over her lips and she pulled back away from him. He chuckled and turned to the vampire he had chained to the wall, who was staring at Lottie hungrily. Angelus pulled him down from where he had chained him to the wall by his hands and pushed him to the floor.

The vampire kept his eyes fixed on Lottie and attempted to use his feet to push himself toward her. She shrank back and whimpered as Angelus pinned the vampire in place with his foot between the vampire's shoulder blades. 

"When you're as old as me, Lottie," Angelus said conversationally, "you learn a lot. Pick up a lot of useless bits of information. Like, did you know that if you cut a tongue in half, the two bits work as two separate tongues? Interesting, huh? Oh, you don’t believe me," he straddled the vampire's back and wrenched his head back, tugging his mouth open. The vampire whimpered in protest, but Angelus ignored him. He pulled the vampire's tongue further out of his mouth and pulled a knife from his boot. In one swift movement, he rammed it through the tongue and pushed the vampire's head forward. While the vampire gargled a scream, Angelus pushed the knife forward, cutting the tongue in two from the middle to the tip, "the thing about vampires," Angelus continued, "is they heal quick. See, if I'd done this to a human, they'd have passed out from the pain, then bled to death. Good thing he tried to take me on, huh? Or I'd be getting through more bodies than that," he pointed to the dead body of a young man in the corner.

Lottie was extremely pale; Angelus would go so far as to say she was slightly green. He hung the vampire back on the wall and shackled its legs as well as its hands. He glanced out into the hall, which was slowly being filled with sunlight. 

They would move on tonight. He hoped the vampire would fit in the trunk of the car he'd stolen. He hauled Lottie to her feet and pushed her toward the closet in the corner. It was the smallest one he could find in the entire place and the darkest. He opened the door and gave her a nudge with his boot. She stumbled, unable to balance properly with her hands tied behind her back. She glowered at him.

"My dad's going to kill you," she hissed, though shook with fear as she spoke.

He sank down in front of her and smirked.

"I'd like you to see him try," he pushed her inside, slammed the door and locked it. He paused for a moment, savouring her screams, before turning to check his vampire victim was secure. He couldn’t risk him getting free while he was out looking for the Shaman. He opened the door to the basement and looked back toward the closet, hearing her screams start to fade as he added in a low voice, "and fail."

***

If he was truly honest, he was losing hope. They hadn't found a thing. Not even a clue. If this carried on, he didn’t know what he would do. The worst thing was that Angelus might move onto a place they already checked and that would cost them time. 

He sighed and stood up, he couldn’t sleep. He didn’t know how he could be expected to. What was Angelus doing to her? He shuddered as he remembered Drusilla, the things he had read about her and Cordy's description. Drusilla was proof that Angelus didn’t have to hurt someone physically to destroy them and Drusilla was a grown woman, Lottie was only a child. 

But the thing that absolutely terrified him, the thing he couldn’t bear to even imagine was screwing this up. 

When Melissa picked up Lottie and introduced them with the words, "Charlotte, this is your daddy." His startled response was born of fear. His own life was a mess and he was now completely responsible for another life. He was scared he would make a mess of it, just like his father always said he would in everything he did. 

If he didn’t get her back, he would never get the chance to prove he could be a good dad. This whole thing terrifed him because if he screwed this up, he was just like his father and after everything his father had put him through, he had sworn he would never be like him.

God, all he was asking for was a chance to be the kind of dad he had always wanted. The kind of dad his daughter deserved. That’s all he wanted. He wanted Lottie back, safe and unharmed. 

Was that so much to ask for?

With a long, sad sigh picked up his glasses and toyed with them as he went down to the lobby and sat on the couch.

"Couldn’t sleep, huh?"

He jumped and stared into the blackness, pushing his glasses on and straining to make out the figure on the chair opposite. He needn't have bothered, he knew that voice.

"No, Faith, I couldn’t."

"I get that."

"Maybe," he shrugged, though she couldn’t have seen. 

He heard the pattering of bare feet on the cold floor and then the click seconds before the light flooded the lobby. He squinted in Faith's general direction and found that when he finally regained his sight, she was smirking at him. He rolled his eyes and sank back into the couch, intent on brooding.

She nibbled her lip, giving him a sympathetic look. She sat back down in her chair opposite him and watched him as his brow furrowed and he sank into a depression. 

He was different. He had been different when she last saw him, less like the Watcher from Sunnydale. But this new Wesley was something else entirely and she wasn't sure she understood him. Finally, she spoke.

"Things'll get better, Wesley," she told him softly.

"How do you know that?" he looked up at her and looked genuinely serious, as though he actually wanted an answer.

"Because this looks familiar… Looks pretty much like rock bottom," she gestured at him and glanced toward the ceiling as she added, "no where else to go but up."

 

TBC…


	17. Chapter 17

***

Most people's phobias were borne out of childhood experiences. One bad thing in childhood could echo through the rest of your life. Fear of heights, fear of spiders - there's always a reason. A catalyst. Something that started it. And sometimes you can't remember why or how. 

But most of the time, you do because the first time it happens, the first time the fear grips your stomach, that becomes your worst nightmare.

Because of Lenny, Lottie was scared of the dark.

Because of Angelus, Lottie was scared of small spaces.

To her, the worst thing in the world was having to sit in the dark, not knowing what was going on outside or when you were getting out. She hated it; she hated not being able to see a way out. She knew the rooms Angelus always locked her in were small, but the longer she was stuck in there, the more her hysteria grew. 

She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t scream anymore and the silence and complete nothingness weighed on her, as if the space were vast. After a while, she shut up and sat with her eyes squeezed shut until she was grateful when Angelus dragged her from the closet later in the day.

For the rest of her life, she swore would always make sure she could see the way out. 

***

Wes glanced across at Faith who was studying a crossbow intensely. She had one leg swung over the chair, giving a fine view of her muscular thighs. He slumped into the couch and sighed. He was beyond tired. He hadn't slept properly for a couple of days, since Lottie had gone missing. Now, his eyes began to droop and he leaned his head on his hand and promised himself just a couple of minutes.

Faith looked up, her face impassive as she watched the sleeping ex-Watcher. There was something soft about him when he was asleep. His face was no longer tight from holding in all his fear, worry and guilt. In his sleep, the emotions were easily readable, as though he couldn’t escape them even in dreams, which was something she could relate to.

She wondered vaguely if she were part of the problem. Yet another worry to add to his shoulders. She hoped not. It wasn't like she expected - or wanted, for that matter - anything from him. She didn’t expect him to forgive her for what she had done, but she respected him for putting it to one side, though she knew that was more to do with worrying about his daughter than anything else. 

She had to admit the situation was wearing her down too. The others had backed off, seeming to come to a hesitant acceptance of her presence. She had never known the little girl, but had heard the others talk about her when Wes wasn’t around and she sounded like a nice kid. She could practically see Wes imagining what could be happening to her and her own thoughts disturbed her. 

She knew it was Angelus. She knew that. But she was also sure Angel needed saving. He was out there somewhere and once they got him back and he remembered what had happened… She wondered if he'd cope. She wondered if Wes would let him.

"You're staring."

She jumped and turned, looking up at Connor and Gunn.

"Huh?"

"At English, you were staring," Gunn repeated, jutting his chin toward the sleeping man, "don’t go waking him up, he hasn't slept in days."

Fred appeared and smiled down at Wesley, gently removing his glasses and pushing him back onto the couch. She cautioned the others with a glare not to wake him and disappeared back into the kitchen where she was apparently helping Cordy make pancakes.

"What's the plan for tonight?" Connor asked in a low voice.

Faith stood and pushed the two men further away from Wesley.

"Same as usual."

"That never turns anything up!" Connor replied in frustration.

"Kid, I get this is your dad, ok? But back off, I'm the one Wes brought here to find him. You got any other ideas, I'd love to hear 'em."

"He's not my father," Connor gritted.

"You know what? You're right. He's not, Angel is. I'm still waiting for suggestions."

"Lorne could do a spell," Gunn said, "there's gotta be something that means we can find him."

"Lorne's not strong enough," Cordy said, appearing at the back of the group with Fred and Lorne, "the mojo Lilah started to protect Lottie means a spell wouldn’t work to find them, kinda like a magnet next to a compass. You'd need someone powerful."

"Which isn't me," Lorne added ruefully.

"What about you?" Faith asked, "thought you were all demon-y now, C?"

"Part demon," Cordy corrected, though her vice lacked the sting it had held in their first few discussions, "and anyway, I've tried. It's not working. I was new to this when I left for the big light in the sky and if I learnt anything, the PTB made sure I forgot it."

"What now?" Fred asked quietly, "the more time we spend trying to find Angelus…"

"Means the more time he's got to hide," Gunn finished.

"And the more time he's got to find the guy to destroy the soul," Connor reminded them sullenly.

"And if that happens…" Faith tailed off, unable to finish her sentence.

"God help us all," Cordy whispered, looking over at Wesley, "and God help Lottie."

***

Angelus kicked open the door of the house. A Shaman in Santa Monica. Who knew? But then what Shaman was gonna live in the stereotypical shack when Wolfram and Hart could get them a good place?

He had found out about the guy through some demons at a bar. This was the soonest he could get there. He was counting on the fact that if this guy was evil, he could walk right into the house. Yelling from beyond the barrier, unable to cross the threshold sorta took the edge off the threats and the mystery went to hell. If there was one thing Angelus loved, it was drama and mystery. Darla had called him "theatrical."

He reached out a hand and grinned when it was not stopped. Lilah hadn't been bluffing. There weren't many humans who were so evil that even a vampire didn’t need an invite into their home. Angelus really wanted to meet this guy. He wondered if he'd taste good. He did like the taste of magick in the veins. That gypsy girl had a spice of magick, but his fondest memory was of a willowy blonde witch back in 1803. Now she had been a nummy treat. 

He was silent as he slipped down the hall; he appreciated the element of surprise. All the lower rooms were empty. He climbed the stairs and checked the rooms upstairs. All were empty. Suddenly, he froze in the hall; he had picked up the scent of blood. 

And disinfectant. 

He concentrated on the scent of blood and followed it back into the main bedroom. He looked around, smelt the death and the overbearing stench of humanity, yet more disinfectant and heavy duty cleansing sprays.

There was no body, but Angelus was not stupid.

Wolfram and Hart wanted him.

And they were willing to kill if it meant he turned to them for help.

***

They were arming themselves up again, ready to go out for another night of searching. Wes cocked his shotgun, checked he had stakes and grabbed the tranquilliser gun, though he knew if he had a clear shot, he'd much rather take the asshole's brain out with a bullet. He figured that would keep him out for a while and hey, he was a vampire, he'd heal. 

Faith picked up a crossbow; Gunn, his axe and Connor took a long sword and small hand axe. 

Cordy, Fred and Lorne offered the usual "be careful's," but no one was actually listening. They had heard the words too often, yet another testimony to the previous nights failures. 

Wes didn’t say a word, preferring to let Faith take charge. It wasn’t like she wasn’t capable and he was too tired to think up strategies. He was saving his energy for one thing and one thing only.

He turned when the group did and followed them up the stairs to the main door. He stopped when they did, but it wasn't until he heard a vaguely familiar voice that he looked up.

"You don’t call, you don’t write. But as soon as a vampire's on the loose, the phone doesn’t stop ringing."

He stared at the red head and her blonde companion. The others looked on in shocked silence.

"Willow?" he asked.

"Yep. This is Tara," she indicated her companion, "and we're here to see a guy about a soul."

 

TBC…


	18. Chapter 18

***

It felt like forever since he had had hope. Faith had been his hope. But just because she was a Slayer and he was well aware that she doing her best didn’t mean the fact that their searches always turned up nothing didn’t hurt like hell. But here was the very person he had been counting on, before the seething red hot need for revenge filled his vision and stopped any ideas of saving Lottie and Angel from escaping his lips. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, he actually felt alive.

The last time he had felt alive was when he watched a small girl with an unruly mop of curly brown hair try to suck cookie dough ice cream into her mouth through the gap where her tooth should have been. He remembered a surge of love and pride that was starting to feel normal, like it had always been there. He remembered looking at big blue eyes eagerly taking in 18th century engravings, and feeling sick to his stomach with fear and completely in awe of the fact that he - of all people - had somehow been involved in the creation of this girl. 

He remembered how he enjoyed being needed when her hand slipped into his or she couldn’t reach the box of cereal. 

He remembered wanting to do anything in the world to get that back.

"Willow," he said again.

"That’s my name, don’t wear it out," she answered with a grin.

Her companion - Tara - put a hand on Willow's arm and frowned a little.

"Willow," she said softly.

Willow nodded and approached Wesley as he wondered abstractly if she had even noticed Faith who was watching Willow with wide eyes. Of course, she hadn't seen her in years.

"When we got back from our trip, a friend of Giles said you called. Cordy told us what happened. We got the first flight over. God, I'm so sorry we couldn’t get here earlier."

"Cor…" he turned his head, completely shocked and Cordy shrugged.

"I didn’t want to get your hopes up," she said simply.

And right then, he realised why he loved Cordelia Chase. She wasn’t as insensitive as she sometimes made out and he was infinitely grateful for her right then.

"G-Giles gave us some stuff," Tara said shyly and Willow slipped her hand in hers, "well, his friend had some texts on gypsy curses and we've got them here. We thought we could maybe…"

"Find something to break Angel's curse? Can you do that?" Faith demanded.

Willow looked at her, blinked, studied her a moment and - to Wesley's surprise - smiled at her.

"How you doing, Faith?"

"I'm… ok," Faith replied warily.

"So, are we going to get this going or not?" Lorne asked, clapping his hands.

They bustled into action, each grabbing a book from Tara and eagerly starting to skim. All except Willow, Tara, Wesley and Faith.

"You came all the way here to help me?" he asked Willow.

"I figured you could use some help," she smiled.

"A-and it would be a good, um, test," Tara added.  
"Oh. Yes, I heard… I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" Willow asked brusquely, "I did it, it's not like it's your fault. You gonna help us with the research or not?"

"It would be my pleasure."

He took a book from Tara with a gentle smile. Something about the girl reminded him of himself in his days in Sunnydale. Though she - thankfully - did not cover her shyness and nerves with a pompous attitude that alienated everyone.

Faith was the only one left standing as the rest of the group fell into silence as they pored over the books.

"I guess you won't be needing me anymore then," she said and turned sharply, stalking out of the hotel.

The others glanced up, but were too excited by this new salvation to go running after her. Wes watched the door for a moment, before opening his book and reading.

***

Angelus was pissed. She could tell by the sounds coming from beyond the door. She knew she should be terrified of why he was angry and what it meant he would do. But she was willing to trade even the brutal rage of Angelus for the stifling heaviness of the closet.

But she still shrank back when Angelus tore the door open and grabbed her. He threw her over his shoulder and she watched his feet click in and out of her view as he strode to the opposite side of the room. She felt the movement of his arm flash out, felt his hand connect with something and heard the throaty scream of the vampire as it was dusted. He pulled her forward long enough to shove the gag back into her mouth and turned again and strode out of the room, along the hall and out into the darkness, slipping down an alley.

She didn’t have to wonder where they were going, what was going to happen.

They were moving.

He was taking her away. 

He was making sure she wouldn’t be found.

And Lottie hated him for it.

***

Wes was used to researching; it was what he was good at. And right now, he thought he had a better chance of saving Lottie with a book and a witch than with a sword and a Slayer.

Which he knew was unfair to Faith. She had tried to help, really. She had even been nice to him, she had tried to connect with him, make him feel better. And he was grateful, but the fact remained that none of it had helped. 

Most of the others were having a hard time with the texts. He seemed the only one fluent in the ancient language damn near all the books were written in, though Willow and Tara seemed to be coping. 

He flicked through the pages of legends and glanced at the first spell the book had offered before turning the page. He continue to barely glance at the script on each page, but he froze over one word. Thesula.

He glanced at the others who hadn't noticed his pause then returned his attention to the spell. It was the second part of the curse. The removal of the clause and therefore the curse. He gulped and frowned. Why wasn’t he waving this at the others, telling them it was all going to be fine because here was the thing they were looking for? Why was he just sitting here?

He stood slowly and wandered into the office, nobody questioned where he was going and why and he was grateful for it. He put the book on the desk and spent a moment reading through it. No. No mistake. This was Angel's key to happiness. 

Wes clenched his jaw and slowly tore the page from the book, trying to make as little sound as possible.

This was the key to Angel's happiness. This was the thing that meant he could make love to Cordelia. This was the thing that meant Angel could have countless moments of perfect bliss.

And that was the reason Wes pocketed the page and returned the book to Tara, telling her there was nothing in it.

That was the reason he didn’t object when Willow said she would do the en-soulment spell to save Angel and Lottie and they could go on looking once everything was ok. 

That was the reason Wes kept his mouth shut about it when he went out to Rick's Magick and Stuff to get a Thesulan Orb.

Because Angelus was in Angel and Angelus was a monster. He didn’t deserve happiness.

TBC…


	19. Chapter 19

***

"… But you can get one here by sometime tomorrow?" Wes pressed.

"Sure," Rick nodded, "just gimme your number and I'll call you as soon as I get it."

Wes sighed and scrawled the hotel's number below his name and handed it to Rick. Rick smiled at him, but Wes felt too drained to return it. To think only a couple of hours ago, he could practically see Lottie; so close he thought he was to getting her back. 

He should feel happy; Willow and Tara would be performing the spell tomorrow as soon as they got the Thesulan Orb. That meant that tomorrow, his daughter would be safe at home.

But there was a nagging voice at the back of his mind, hissing about the paper he had torn from the book. It whispered of betrayal - Are you really just a traitor? You keep betraying your friend! That spell could stop this ever happening again! 

The point was, he knew it was in some way a betrayal. He had been looking for a cure for the curse back when Angel first got together with Cordelia and now here he was taking that away. All for revenge.

Part of him wanted nothing more than for the vampire never to find redemption, to never have it easy. Yet the other half, the part that still called Angel "friend" despite all this, wanted to hand it over and let bygones be bygones.

But still the paper remained in his pocket and Wes left the bright shop and stepped out into the street. In truth, the most part of him didn’t care. Angel had survived this long with his quest for redemption, his brooding and his wallowing. Wes didn’t see any point in fixing what wasn’t broken, so to speak.

He strode across the street, away from the glaring lights and laughter. He wanted no part of it, not when it was all just a pitiful reminder of the fact his life was a mockery of normality and happiness. And the truth was, it always had been, save just over two years when he first came to LA and a handful of days under a week ago.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and carried on walking, alone with his thoughts. He had gotton used to that, but it didn’t mean he had to like - Oh, for God's sake!

He caught sight of Faith - at least, that’s who he thought it was - out of the corner of his eye. She was turning the corner to the back of the large warehouse, followed by a couple of vampires. He pulled out a stake and followed. He didn’t plan on doing anything unless he needed to. These days he didn’t seem to have energy for much else besides worrying and focusing on getting Lottie back. He leaned against the wall and peered round at her.

She was enjoying herself. But then, this was Faith; she enjoyed this kind of thing. She was grinning as she pummelled the first vampire, knocking him to the ground before turning to dust the second. The other stood and came at her again, launching with his right hand which she knocked off course with a high kick. 

Wes had to admit she had style, a life about her that most people he knew didn’t have. She staked the second vampire, but not before he got in a cruel punch that bruised her cheek and split her lip.

"Dammit," she muttered, pressing her hand to her lip as she kicked at the dust with a slight grin.

"Let me," Wes said. She looked up, dropping into a defensive posture before relaxing when she realised who it was. She tensed a little as he pressed a tissue gently to her bloody lip, but didn’t say anything. He frowned at the already darkening bruise on her face and said, "come on, let's fix that up. We'll go to my place, it's nearer than the hotel," he offered her a ghost of a smile and added, "besides, Cordy and Willow are reminiscing, I'd rather not."

She smiled and followed him out from around the building and onto the street.

***

He hadn't been at the apartment in days; he flicked the switch and motioned her inside. 

"The bathroom's through there," he told her, "I'll get the First Aid kit."

"Wes, I'm fine," she shrugged, "nothing a shower won't fix."

"Be my guest," he replied and went into the living room. 

She was quick in the shower, she didn’t much like using other people's stuff, she always figured she'd break it and right now, she didn’t want Wes hassling her if he pulled the towel bar off the wall. 

But that’s exactly what she felt like doing. She was frustrated. She was the Slayer and yet she hadn't found a thing. Now - according to Wes who had filled her in on their way here - Willow was here and everything was fine. Tomorrow, a locator spell and re-ensoulment, and Willow and her girlfriend would be back in Sunnydale by the next day.

Faith might as well go back to rotting in a cell, for all the good she was doing here. She left the bathroom, fully dressed, her hair damp and found Wes frozen by the couch.

"Wes?" she said, "Wes, you ok?"

He turned and she saw the sweater he clutched in his hands. Oh.

"I'm fine," he replied unsteadily, "I - er, this was… We can use it for the locator spell."

Faith nodded and he left abruptly to go into the kitchen. Part of her wished for the old Wesley. The one that believed she could be helped - before she tortured him, anyway. This Wesley seemed barely alive and it was all she could do not to attempt to shake that life back into him. She'd have pompous Wesley over this one any day; at least his eyes weren't dull.

She followed Wes into the kitchen, sat down and yawned.

"You're tired," he observed and glanced at the clock behind her, "it's late. You can stay here if you like, I'll call the others."

"It's ok, I don’t mind going back to the hotel."  
"Well, I do. It's a long walk and I don’t make a habit of letting ladies wander off by themselves."

She was going to make a retort, really. It was just… The "lady" threw her. She had never been called one of them.

"I… Ok, whatever," she shrugged.

He stood up and went to the phone, dialling the hotel's number. She sat quietly, pulling at her fingers while she listened to him tell Fred that he was staying at his place that night with her. That of course they were all right and would she ring if Rick called about the Orb of Thesula?

"Do you want anything to eat or drink?" he offered as he replaced the phone, but his voice was robotic, a knee-jerk reaction with no real concern either way.

She shook her head.

"When she comes back," Faith started, "what will you do?"

"Do?" he asked.

"Angel. I mean, what's going to happen?"

"I've no idea. I believe I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. You?"

"Me?"

"Yes. What are you going to do when this is all over?"

"Because I've been such a big help so far," she scoffed.

"You have, as a matter of fact," he said, but did not care to elaborate on how, "so?"

"I don’t know. Guess I'll work at Angel Investigations. It's not like I can do anything else, is it?"

"Maybe not."

"Wes?"

"Yes?"

"I understand."

He looked up sharply. Understand? How could she? What a bloody stupid thing to say.

"Really?" he said crisply, "since when did you become a mother, Faith? When did you lose your child?"

"I didn’t mean it like that," she answered, trying very hard not to match his snappish tone as she had no wish for an argument, "but I get the pain. I know what it feels like to be pushed away, cling to one thing and one thing only. I get that. Nothing's ever real unless it hurts, right? I've hurt in the past and so have you. So I get the pain part of what you're going through. I understand what it feels like to have no idea how to stop what's going on or go back and change it. I know how it feels to blame yourself," she chuckled, "except, with me, I deserved the blame, it really was my fault. But none of this is yours." 

He was silent, contemplating her words. As much as he rejected the idea of understanding from her, he couldn’t help but believe it. And he hated that she understood. Because that meant he was the same as her and he didn’t want that. He wanted to be what his father said he never would be. And if a murderer could understand how he was feeling, maybe he had travelled too far into that goddamned grey area to be saved.

But God knew he had to agree with her. Nothing was ever real unless it hurt. Nothing. Which was the only reason he believed that all this was actually real. Because it hurt so goddamn much.

He looked at her. He had come to terms with the fact that she had changed, that she had become someone new. But he didn’t think he really believed it until now. Not until she reached out and actually tried to make him feel better. The old Faith wouldn’t have done that. And part of him blamed himself for that. 

She smiled at him and he realised he was staring. He stood up quickly and crossed to the fridge.

"Hey," she said, grabbing his wrist as he passed, "it really will be ok. Really."

He didn’t know what made him do it. He didn’t know why he did it. He didn’t know whether he even considered it before he did it.

But he did. He bent down and kissed her. She froze for a second, before slowly and cautiously starting to kiss him back.

He knew he shouldn’t be doing this. His little girl was missing and he was kissing a Slayer. He knew that it was wrong, that he should pull away, apologise and go to bed. 

But he didn’t and neither did she.

Maybe nothing ever was real unless it hurt, but right now, all he wanted was for something real that didn’t hurt. Something warm and soft. He wound his fingers into her hair and stood, pulling her up with him. Her hand slipped under the back of his shirt, caressing his back.

She didn’t know why she was kissing Wesley. She didn’t know why she wasn’t slamming him into a wall and taking control. She didn’t know why she was allowing this to be different. All she knew was that she'd had enough of things being real because they hurt. This felt real and for the first time in a long while, something felt real, but it felt good too.

The apartment was silent but for their desperate groans as they stumbled out of the kitchen, past the couch and fell into Wes's bedroom. His mouth left hers and slipped down to her neck where he kissed her gently before returning to her lips. Stopping him, she pulled his glasses off and peered into his blue eyes. They sparkled with lust and her heart leapt because suddenly they were alive instead of dull with fear, anxiety, guilt and lack of sleep.

They fell back on the bed and she tugged his shirt off before his hands crept under her tank top. 

And for the first time in probably forever, Faith did not urge for speed, but gave herself up to the gentle hands of someone who - unbelievably - cared.

And she closed her eyes and sighed as she allowed herself to be loved. 

Because both of them just wanted to feel something real that didn’t hurt.

 

TBC…


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the aftermath to deal with now. God, that’s gonna be messy. As for Wes's attitude toward Angel/Angelus, well, right now, he's kinda just stuck on the whole "My daughter has been taken by a murderous psychopath who could be torturing her." I know he stole Angel's son and Angel forgave him, but not before trying to kill him. Angel didn’t exactly stop to think "Hang on, Wes had the best of intentions," did he? And there will be a fair bit of introspection in store for Wes and a lot of stuff between Wes and Angel in the next few chapters. So don’t worry, things will get better!

Author's Note: Just the aftermath to deal with now. God, that’s gonna be messy. As for Wes's attitude toward Angel/Angelus, well, right now, he's kinda just stuck on the whole "My daughter has been taken by a murderous psychopath who could be torturing her." I know he stole Angel's son and Angel forgave him, but not before trying to kill him. Angel didn’t exactly stop to think "Hang on, Wes had the best of intentions," did he? And there will be a fair bit of introspection in store for Wes and a lot of stuff between Wes and Angel in the next few chapters. So don’t worry, things will get better!

***

The telephone cut shrilly through the foggy haze of sleep. Wes opened his eyes slowly, yawning and blinked against the brunette mass of hair before him. He pulled his arms from around Faith's waist; stirring her despite his attempt not to and rolled over to grab the phone. She turned and propped herself up on her elbow to watch him as he talked.

"Hello?" he asked groggily, "hello, Fred… He has?! When did he call?…Right…" something Fred said made Wes look over at Faith and smile, "yes, she's fine… No, don’t worry, I'll go now… Thank you for calling me… I know… I'll be back as soon as I can… Yes, that’s a good idea, tell her that’s fine. Thank you, Fred… I will. Goodbye."

Faith watched him leap out of bed and and grab his clothes.

"What's up?" she asked, stifling a yawn.

"That was Fred," he explained hastily, pulling his shirt from the pile on a chair, "Rick called the hotel a few minutes ago. He's got a Thesulan Orb!" he turned to her with a broad grin on his face, "Willow's going to the locator spell now. Lottie's going to be ok!"

He leant forward, still grinning, and clasped her face between his hands and kissed her gently on the lips before running from the room. She sat silently, listening to the shower. She watched him hurry back into the room with glistening wet hair, grab his wallet and turn to leave the room. He returned momentarily to tell her, "I'll go and get it now and see you at the hotel, ok?"

She nodded slowly and listened as the front door of the apartment slammed shut. She didn’t move, instead sat naked in the middle of his bed and thought.

But it was not the imminent return of Angel and Lottie that was on her mind.

It was the warm, fuzzy feeling in her stomach when he kissed her.

***

Faith wrapped her arms around herself in a defensive gesture as she entered the lobby of the hotel. Willow was the only one sitting in the lobby, clutching a piece of paper.

"Hi, Faith," she said, "we did the locator spell. I've got the address here," she waved the piece of paper at her with a smile, "you ok?"

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Faith asked. 

Willow frowned, but Faith sat down and waited for an answer. Since Willow showed up, she had been nothing but civil, friendly even. The last time Faith saw Willow, she was in Buffy's body. And after the things she did in that body, she couldn’t believe how nice Willow was being.

"People change, Faith," Willow shrugged, "I mean, take Wesley for example. Talk about shiny and new! I guess I saw you'd changed. I see more now, with the big magick thing I did in England. I can see you're really trying. And after the things I've done, who am I to judge?"

"What do you mean? What did you do?"

Willow shifted uncomfortably and avoided Faith's eyes.

"I got in deep. I got addicted to the magicks… Dawn got hurt because of it."

"Oh."

Willow shrugged again and descended into silence. 

"How was your night?" Willow asked after a while.

"What?" Faith asked, horrified that maybe Willow knew what had happened between her and Wesley.

And as she thought that, she wondered what was going to happen now. With Lottie and Angel returning sometime that day, it wasn’t like Wes would have time to discuss it. Not that she wanted to. She wanted to forget it. 

But she knew she wouldn’t. Which meant she wouldn’t forget the fuzzy feeling. But she didn’t want to go there.

"That bad, huh?"

"Bad?" Faith repeated, "no, not bad."

"You mean a night spent all alone with you ex-Watcher and a guy you once tortured, wasn’t that bad?"

"No. We went to bed and we slept. End of," Faith snapped.

Willow raised her eyebrows and Faith had a sneaking suspicion that Willow had an idea what was going on, but she was thankfully saved from further questioning by the main door slamming.

"I've got it!" Wes announced, holding up the garish Rick's Magick and Stuff bag and running down the steps, treating the two women to a dazzling smile.

"Great," Willow enthused, "I'll get Tara, she's just sleeping."

She stood up, shot Wes and Faith a look before running up the stairs. Wes sat down opposite Faith and smiled at her. She couldn’t believe how calm he was being about this. She couldn’t believe how not calm she was being. She was usually the one who said it had been one night, she was usually the one over it as soon as it finished. All that time in jail must have affected her more than she thought.

"Faith," Wes said suddenly, "I think we need to talk. I want to tell you -"

"You got it?" Cordy called, coming down the stairs with the rest of the group.

"Er, yes. I've got it."

"Well, here's the address. That’s where they are," Willow handed the scrap of paper to Wes.

"Thank you," he said, "for all of this."

"Ah, forget it."

"We wish we could do more," Tara added, "y'know, with the curse."

Wes felt a rush of guilt that he swallowed down hurriedly as smoothed the paper.

"Yes," he said, "I'll go there now with Faith."

"We'll come too," Gunn said, indicating Connor and himself.

"No," Wes shook his head, "there's no need for you to see Angel that way," he forced a smile at Connor, "especially you."

"I don’t care. I want to help," Connor said.

"He's right," Faith cut in, "we'll go. You stay here in case anything goes wrong."

He folded his arms, but gave a sullen nod. Faith grabbed a crossbow and went to the door.

"You coming or not?" she snapped at Wes.

"Yes, one minute," he answered, giving her a frown, "good luck, Willow, Tara. And thank you, you've got no idea how grateful I am."

"Oh, I think we have a good idea," Willow answered, smiling at Tara.

Wes nodded at them, still coming to terms with the fact that the shy read head who had seemed so in love with Oz was gay now! But he quite liked the blonde girl. He liked the both of them; he would have liked anyone who could have given him his daughter back.

He turned and followed Faith outside, frowning at this snappish attitude of hers.

***

Faith didn’t like awkward situations. Which was the main reason she never stayed the night with the person she slept with. They left or she did. It was new, sleeping in someone's arms and she now realised why she had never done it before, it complicated things.

She had told Wes they could talk later when this was all over, but she knew when that time rolled round, she'd find another reason to put off the inevitable talk.

She tightened her hands around her crossbow and led Wes into the warehouse. She cast a glance back at him and continued further, listening. All they had to do was be here until the spell kicked in and they could save Lottie. She didn’t have to fight Angelus; the crossbow was a precaution only. 

But she still felt her hands grow slippery on her weapon, felt her breath quicken slightly. God knows, she had heard the horror stories about Angelus. Xander had enjoyed recounting them and Angel himself had admitted to things she couldn’t believe him capable of. 

She didn’t want to face him, didn’t want Angel tarnished with the memory of Angelus. He was like her hero, someone she looked up to, who accepted her, helped her. He was what made her want to change, if she saw a murderer now, she didn’t know what she'd -

"Faith!"

Wes's voice rang out from behind her, but he was too late. The hand gripped the underside of her crossbow and pushed it back with huge strength and it smashed into her face, making her nose bleed. She staggered back slightly and the weapon was wrenched from her grasp and tossed to the ground even as she was pulled toward her attacher and turned. Her back pressed against a chest, her wrists caught tightly behind her back and a hand gripped her throat, just under her chin. 

Wes was staring in horror as he raised his own crossbow. But the only way to Angelus's heart was through Faith's and he wasn’t willing to do it. Angelus smirked at him and tutted.

"I thought you'd got over that emotional stuff that ruins your judgement," he sighed dramatically, "I was starting to get all proud of you. Huh," his voice became a spirited impression of - Wes guessed - Cordelia, "colour me wrong! It must be the English in you. You always were typical of a namby-pamby Englishman, spineless wankers the whole lot of you. But hey, maybe that’s just the Irish in me talking."

He gave Faith's chin a violent tug upwards and she groaned.

"Let her go," Wes said in a low voice.

"Tell ya what, Wes. You give me one really good reason why I should let her go and if I think it's a good enough reason, I'll let her go," Angelus offered.

"Let me think. Um…" Wes feigned deep thought and continued in the same expressionless voice, "oh, here's one: She's a Slayer and if you don’t let her go, she'll kick your ass."

"I think I hit her too hard for that," Angelus mused, looking down into Faith's face, "and I think you can do better than that, Wes," Angelus smirked, "c'mon, dig down deep into that soul of yours. Take a look in your heart. Now give me a reason."

Wes gulped. He knew. The bastard knew. 

Wes remembered a time when Angel had told him he had sex with a bleached blonde. That had been Melissa, but Angel hadn't known that. And now, he must have known what had happened between himself and Faith and was twisting it against him. 

"I'll kick your ass," Wes said finally.

"You think that scares me? Ooo, Wes's gonna beat me up! Mommy! Help!"

"Tell me, Angelus," Wes said, his gaze ticking frequently to Faith, praying that she regained her strength soon, "did you find that Shaman?"

Angelus growled at him and his hand took a better grip on Faith's chin.

"Give me the real reason you don’t want her to die and I won't break her neck. C'mon, Wes, ten seconds, that's all you've got."

Wes gaped at them, fear swirling in his gut until he felt sick. He couldn’t do this. 

9… 8… 

He couldn’t give the reason Angelus was looking for. For one thing, Faith was his one-time torturer; he shouldn’t even have slept with her.

7… 6… 

He knew that Faith had led a colourful love life. He couldn’t believe he had allowed himself to be added to that list, that wasn’t going to help either of them.

5… 4…

But sleep with her he had. All so he could feel. And that was the real problem. The real reason that Angelus could see while Wes still tried to ignore it. He had felt. He had felt far more than he intended to.

3… 2…

It didn’t occur to him that Angelus was lying, that he would kill them both whatever Wes said to him. All he cared about was getting Lottie and Faith home. 

So he gave the reason, the actual reason he had slept with Faith, the reason he wouldn’t be able to bear it if she died.

"I love her!"

Faith's eyes widened at him and he avoided them. God, he couldn’t believe he had said it. He couldn’t believe he had fallen in love with her. Of all the stupid things to do. Fall in love with a girl like Faith while his daughter was missing. 

Maybe he was the bastard, not Angelus.

"There you go!" Angelus returned jovially, "all you had to do was be honest. But, y'know, I was lying. So I think I'll just…"

His voice tailed off and everything slowed down. Wes started forward as Angelus hands started to twist. Faith began to pull away. Then Angelus buckled, his hands slipping from Faith and she took advantage, spinning into a harsh kick that slammed him into a wall.

His eyes flared and he gasped as Faith sank to her knees, one hand holding her bruised throat as the other moped the blood from her nose. Wes put a hand on her back.

"Are you all right, Faith? Wait here, I'll find Lottie and come back to get you."

"I'm fine. I'll take care of him. Go find Lottie."

Wes turned and ran into one of the closest rooms as Faith reached out to touch Angel's knee.

"Hey, there," she said softly.

***

Wes leaned against the wall and watched as Lottie slept in one of the hotel beds. Faith had driven them back to the hotel and Wes had held Lottie, closing his eyes against the shriek of the tyres as she turned sharply. 

Without talking to Angel, Wes entered the hotel and climbed the stairs to collect Lottie's things. But she had crawled onto a bed and fallen into an exhausted sleep. 

He couldn’t bear to move her so he sat down against the wall and watched her. When he had stood to go check on Faith, Lottie had stirred.

"Where are you going?" she had whispered.

"Just to check on Faith," he had whispered, kneeling down by the bed and taking her hand, "I'll be back soon, but I'll stay if you want me too, all right? I'm not going anywhere."

"Stay," she had said, "until I fall asleep. You won't turn off the light, will you? You won't shut the door?"

"No," he had promised, "I won't. Ssshhh, go to sleep."

And as she dozed off, he kissed her forehead as he carefully moved to lean against the wall, her hand still clasping his tightly.

 

TBC…


	21. Chapter 21

***

"She's ok then?" Willow asked as Wes came down the stairs.

"Yes. She's sleeping," his eyes swept the lobby and found so sign of Angel, but everyone else was present and correct, "thank you, Willow. If there's anything I can ever do for you…"

"We won't hesitate to ask," Willow finished with a grin, "right, Tara?"

"Yes," Tara nodded, "it was nice meeting you, Mr Wyndham Pryce."

"Wesley, please."

She blushed a little and ducked behind her hair.

"Tara, Cordelia's taking us out shopping, coming?"

The phone rang from the depths of one of the offices and Wes put his hand out to stop Fred.

"Go on, all of you," he said, "I'll get it. Go and have some fun."

They all cast him a look and he saw Cordy and Fred's eyes tick to the highest level, where Angel's room was. But he kept his accommodating smile in place until they nodded and left in a flurry of chatter.

He jogged into the office and snatched up the phone.

"Angel Investigations, how can I help you?" he said automatically.

"Pryce, that you?"

"Leonard Manning," Wes said, sinking into a seat. Oh, bloody hell, this is all I need, "what do you want?"

"I…" there was a sniff and Wes finally registered the lack of bravado, the slight quaver in the voice.

"Leonard, what's wrong? What happened?"

"It's Melissa…"

"What?" Wes demanded, "talk to me!"

"She's been in an accident…"

"Lenny," Wes said slowly, "is she all right?"

"She's…. No. She's dead."

Wes felt his stomach lurch, his mind come to a juddering halt. Not this. Not now. Not after everything that had happened. How could whatever Higher Power there was allow something like this to happen on top of everything that had already happened?

"That’s not funny, Lenny," Wes snapped, "you expect me to tell Lottie her mother's dead now? Do you even know what's been going on the last few days? Lottie was kidnapped by a vampire!"

"Is she ok?" Lenny asked.

"As if you'd care."

"I looked after her for seven years, Pryce! Is she all right?"

"She's as well as can be expected, Lenny."

"I'm sorry. I just… "

"How did it happen?" Wes whispered.

"Car crash," Lenny sounded choked, "she was trying to get back to LA for Charlotte. She died this morning."

"Oh, God," Wes rubbed his forehead, feeling his eyes sting, "thank you for letting me know. Are you… Are you all right?"

"I guess. I just thought you should know. Tell Charlotte… Tell her I'm sorry?"

"Yes. Of course. I'm sorry, Lenny."

"Yeah. Me too. Bye, Pryce."

Wes dropped the phone back into the cradle and sat in silence. He felt sick. He may not have found Melissa attractive last time he saw her, but at one time, he had thought himself in love with her. And she was the mother of his child. And she was… gone. 

There was no chance she was going to sweep back into his life and take Lottie back. There wouldn’t even be visits, birthday cards or Christmas presents. 

And he didn’t know how he was going to tell Lottie. 

He stood up slowly, feeling heavy and old and went back out into the now empty lobby and through to the kitchen.

Wes entered the kitchen cautiously, casting his eyes around for any sign of Angel. There was no one in the kitchen except someone bent over searching the fridge and that was definitely not Angel. Wes was grateful. His feelings toward the vampire had become even more conflicted and he really didn’t want to have to face up to them just yet. 

He entered the kitchen and sat down, leaning against the wall, waiting for the figure to emerge from the fridge.

The figure straightened up and turned to face him, ice cream tub clutched in one hand. Faith shut the door of the fridge and sat down opposite him.

"I didn’t hear you come in," she commented, collecting two spoons and opening the tub. She offered him a spoon and he took it silently, scooping out a large spoonful and sucking the ice cream from it thoughtfully. Faith glanced at him briefly, "she still asleep?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"What's up?"

"Melissa's dead," he answered dully.

"Who?"

"Lottie's mother."

"Shit," Faith breathed, "I'm sorry, Wes."

"It isn't your fault. I'm just dreading telling Lottie," he scooped up some more ice cream and propped his head in his hands, "oh, God, this is the last thing I need."

Faith smiled sympathetically. She reached out to pat his hand, but snapped it back, suddenly reminded of his confession with a jolt.

"I love her!"

"Wes," she ventured, "probably not the right time or anything, but can I ask you something?"

He looked up at her. She wasn’t avoiding him anymore. And suddenly he very much wanted to avoid her.

"Faith, I…" he glanced down at the melting ice cream, "yes, all right."

"You, uh, love me?" she asked, doubt evident in her voice.

He glanced at her before realising that - oh God, I said I loved her. It hadn't been some God-awful dream. It had been real and here it was, about to slap him around the face.

He wanted to know where that had come from. He was willing to admit her liked her, was attracted to her, but love? But as he looked at her, he realised he did. He was in love with her. 

And he didn’t know when or why. He had thought about it, thought he was wrong. He had hoped it was merely a stupid side effect of sleeping with her, or because she had tried to save his little girl. 

But, somehow, it wasn’t anything to do with that. He was attracted to her and out of nowhere he had fallen in love with her. Her smile, the way she laughed and swung her hips as she walked. He thought he began to warm to her when they spoke in his office, when she said, "Pain. Courage. Less uptight. You're all grown up. I noticed that too." He thought he realised she had really changed then. And then she had actually tried to make him feel better.

"Things'll get better, Wesley… Because this looks familiar… Looks pretty much like rock bottom. No where else to go but up."

He had been surprised by such a conscious attempt to cheer him up and after that, he started to think of her as a friend. Started to worry about her along with Gunn and Connor when they went out to search. Maybe if he hadn't started to care about her, this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if he hadn't come across her that night in the alley, this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if she had pushed him away when he gently stemmed the blood flow from her nose, this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if she hadn't seemed to understand every single thing he felt, this wouldn’t have happened.

Maybe if she hadn't kissed him back, this wouldn’t have bloody happened.

And he wished he hadn't fallen for her. He hadn't known it was possible to fall in love so quickly, but he had and he wished to God he hadn't. Because he knew it could never work.

He looked at her again and read her expression as mocking. And he remembered the sting of rejection. Scrap that, the almighty kick in the gut kinda pain of rejection. And on top of finding out his ex-girlfriend and mother of his child was dead; he didn’t want to add to the misery weighing on his shoulders. So he amended his earlier words with a rueful smile.

"No," he shook his head, "not that I - I don’t like you. I do. But I don’t love you. I was just trying to appeal to Angelus's better nature. I forgot he doesn’t have one."

"Oh," was all she said.

"Faith, I -"

"Yo, it's cool, ok? In fact, I'm glad, I wouldn’t have wanted to break you're heart, that’s all," she grinned and it made her cheeks ache.

"Well, I have thought about it and it wasn’t like it was going to work, Faith… You and I."

"Why not?" she blurted, shrugging as though it were merely a question when he shot her a quizzical look.

"Because… I have Lottie. And now that Melissa's gone, I'm all she has in the world. And despite what I just said about not loving you, I am attracted to you and I have thought about a relationship with you. But, as much as I'd like this - us - to work out, I can't see you being content to play happy families. Can you?"

"No. No, you're right, Wes. But hey, it was fun while it lasted, right?"

"Yes - "

"And it really lasted. And, hey, at least I didn’t torture you this time."

"No. At least you didn’t do that."

She nodded, her eyes burning and her smile aching.

"And we're still friends?"

"Of course we are, Faith. I value your friendship."

"Well, that’s good then. You, uh, you go and sit with Lottie."

"Where are you going?"

"See Gunn, must be some cases, right?"

"Right."

He watched her go for a moment before dumping his spoon into the ice cream tub and resting his head in his hands. In a matter of days he had lost his daughter, lost a friend, got his daughter back, slept with his one time torturer, fell in love with his one time torturer and now Melissa was dead. 

And he still hadn't spoken to Angel and he knew he would have to at some point.

It had all been too much, too soon and for five glorious minutes; Wes allowed himself the luxury of tears.

***

Wes had had a lot of time to think after his discussion with Faith. Now that Lottie was fine and he didn’t have to think about what he would say to Faith, there was only one thing to think about.

Angel.

Wes was seated back in his usual position with his back against the wall, watching Lottie munch her way steadily through a pizza.

"When you've finished that, we'll go home," he told her.

He wanted out. He wanted away from this place because he was all too aware of Angel's presence upstairs. He knew he would have to talk to him, but he didn’t know what he'd say because he no longer had any kind of idea how he felt towards him

"But Fred promised she'd read me a story!" Lottie protested, "and she said she'd buy me something while she was out! Can't we stay for a little while longer?"

He was surprised. But Cordelia had reassured him that children were resilient, she promised him Lottie would bounce back, all she needed was some sleep. But Wes put this bright attitude down to the fact that Lottie had no idea that Angel was in a room two floors above and had not ventured out since he had returned.

He frowned at her request, but unable to resist, nodded. She smiled around her pizza and he sank back into his thoughts.

He was finding this new situation hard to comprehend. He knew he would have to face Angel eventually and he was dreading it because he didn’t know what he was going to say. He didn’t even know if he hated him. 

What scared him most was the fact that he was able to find too many similarities in his feelings toward Angelus for taking Lottie and the feelings he had seen in Angel's eyes when he tried to kill him after he took Connor.

"Hey," Fred entered the room with a wide smile, "oh, pizza! Can I have some?"

"Sure," Lottie handed her a slice and returned to sucking tomato off her fingers.

"Thanks," Fred took a bite and studied Wes with tomato smudged around her mouth, "you ok, Wes?"

"Fine. I'm just thinking."

"Don’t hurt yourself," Gunn told him, coming into the room behind Fred, "we're here for Lottie sitting duty. Fred's gonna tell us a story, right, Lottie?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Oh," Wes stood up from his place and hesitated by the door, "I've got something I need to do. I'll be back soon."

He kissed Lottie's forehead and left the room. Fred and Gunn exchanged glances.

"Where’s he going?" Fred asked in a low voice.

Gunn cast his eyes up to the ceiling, his eyes following the sound of footsteps thudding above them.

"He's going to see Angel."

TBC…


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Angel and Wes discussion chapter, so it's just a shortie. Also, don’t think Faith and Wes are over just like that. The next chapter will be set in a few weeks and Faith and Angel are going to talk. I'm also considering some Angel and Lottie stuff too.

Author's Note: This is the Angel and Wes discussion chapter, so it's just a shortie. Also, don’t think Faith and Wes are over just like that. The next chapter will be set in a few weeks and Faith and Angel are going to talk. I'm also considering some Angel and Lottie stuff too.

Also, no more nasty stuff, it's all good from now on. I promise!

***

Angel was curled against the wall on his bed, staring into the middle distance. He had refused Cordelia's pleas to be let in and he had as yet to pluck up the courage to leave the room. 

He had listened to the sounds of enthusiastic voices as they all went out to show Willow and Tara the sights. The witches had knocked on his door to check on him, but he couldn’t even bring himself to say thank you. 

He heard the sounds of Wes and Lottie two floors below and it was them he focused his ears on. More than anything in the world, he wanted her to be ok. He wanted… If he was honest, he wanted no one to hate him. But he knew that was expecting too much.

He heard the thud of boots coming up the hall and he shrank back against the sound. The footsteps stopped outside his door and Angel sat up straight.

"Angel," he heard Wes say, "it's me. I want to talk to you. Open the door."

When Angel didn’t make a move to open the door, he could practically hear Wes huff.

"You're over two hundred bloody years old, Angel! Stop being so childish and open the damn door!"

Angel stood up and shuffled to the door. He took in a deep, unneeded breath and pulled himself up into some semblance of his former self. Then he opened the door.

"Wes -" he started as he opened the door.

But Wes's fist flew into his face so hard he felt his nose crack, blood spurt over his lip and he stumbled back, losing his balance and landing on the floor. He stared up at Wes who entered the room and calmly closed the door behind him.

He cradled his fist in the other hand, checking the bruising that was already starting to bloom across his knuckles.

"No," he said thoughtfully, "I didn’t think that would make me feel better."

Wes sat down in a chair and eyed Angel calmly.

"You should wipe that up before it goes all over the floor."

Angel nodded and stood up, going into the bathroom to snatch up some tissues. He perched on the edge of the bed, with the tissues over his nose. He removed them for a moment to talk.

"You going to hit me again?" he asked, "'cause I wouldn't blame you."

"Weren't you listening? I said it didn’t make me feel any better. Especially when the man you're hitting doesn’t intend to fight back."

"But you hate me?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Wes replied honestly, after a while he added, "Melissa died this morning."

"Her mother?"

"Yes. I don’t think I'll tell her for a few days. She's been through enough."

Angel averted his eyes.

"Wes, I'm sorry for -"

"You can't apologise, Angel," Wes interrupted, "just as I can't apologise for taking Connor. But tell me, did you know she can't sleep without the door open?"

"No."

"She didn’t need that before. Can I ask why she suddenly needs it now?"

"I - I… I kept her locked in a closet."

Angel heard Wes let out a long shuddering breath and he heard the squeak of leather as Wes's hands tightened on the arms of the chair.

"I thought as much," he whispered, then his head snapped up and he stared at Angel, "you did it."

Angel lifted his head to look at him.

"You know I did."

"No, I mean, you said you did it, not Angelus. You're not him."

Angel resisted the urge to let his mouth drop open at this.

"What?"

Wes turned his head away. He had seen Angelus, seen the smirk, seen the sick glint in his eye. Looking at Angel now, the slump of his shoulders and his mournful eyes, Wes thought he and Angelus barely looked alike. He had intended to yell at Angel until he came to some kind of conclusion. But now, faced with his old friend, who had forgiven for his betrayal, he suddenly found he didn’t blame Angel. 

It hadn't been Angel that took Lottie, it had been Angelus. He had an advantage over Wesley in that respect, as Wes had been completely himself when he took Connor.

It hurt to admit that this man before him wasn’t Angelus, because that meant he had no one to blame but the evil ghost of a vampire buried so deep within this one, it was hard to even see him. More than anything, Wes wanted to hate Angel. But he couldn’t. Because this wasn’t the man who stole his daughter and locked her in the closet. This was the man who had sat in his kitchen and eaten cookies with his daughter while they discussed school.

So, no, Wes couldn’t blame him and couldn’t forgive him. As much as it hurt to admit it, there was nothing to forgive.

"As much as this pains me, Angel," he started, looking for words to explain what he wanted to say, "you aren't Angelus. He's in there, but he isn't you," Wes stood up, suddenly burning with fury as he glared at the vampire, "and I hate that you aren't him! I know you're not and I wish to God you were so I could hurt you! That’s all I thought about while she was gone - hurting you! And now you're here, I can't. Because you're not him. I know that. You're Angel. And God help me, but I still think Angel is my friend, however much I hate Angelus."

"I'm… What?" Angel shook his head, trying to understand what Wes was saying.

"It would be hypocritical of me to hold a grudge against you for taking Lottie, when I took your son."

"But you didn’t mean for him to get hurt, if I could I would have -"

"Shut up!" Wes hissed, "you're always so determined to play the martyr and it's getting old! The point is that whether my intentions were good or not, it was because I stole Connor that he was forced to grow up in a Hell dimension. That is my fault. Lottie did not have to endure anything like that, thankfully. You forgave me, it's only right that I forgive you."

"I don’t want your forgiveness, Wesley," Angel started, "not if it's only in exchange for mine."

"It's not," Wes shrugged, "I've done a lot of reading on Angelus. A lot. I came to the conclusion years ago that you and he were two separate beings existing in one body. I don’t have the energy to change that opinion now; especially what has just happened has only proven my theory. So, yes, I forgive you because it wasn’t you. I wish you were him so I could take out some kind of revenge, but I can't," he shook his bruised knuckles lightly, "I already tried that and it didn’t help. I'm willing to let bygones be bygones."

Angel was silent. He remembered when he tried to kill Wesley. He remembered that it didn’t make him feel any better. But he hadn't expected any of this, he looked up at Wes, by the looks of it, this decision was as much as shock to him as it was to Angel.

"Does this mean you're not going to stop working here?" Angel asked, trying to break the silence.

"There is no other job I can do and I have a child to take care of. I won't bring Lottie here if I can help it. She's just a child, Angel; you can't expect forgiveness from her. Maybe when she's older, she'll learn. But not now and I'm not willing to make her face you. Are we clear on that?"

"Yes."

Wes extended his hand to Angel and cautiously, Angel took it and Wes helped him up.

"Now, I think I should be getting home. I also think you have a job to do that isn't getting done up here. And two witches to thank," Wes lowered his head briefly, "what are you going to do about Cordelia?" he asked, "she says you refuse to talk to her."

"I… I'm going to end it. We can't risk this again."

"Cordelia means a great deal to me," Wes stated, "and you're going to break her heart."

"I don’t want to," Angel told him, "but it's better than becoming him again. There is no other option."

"Yes there is," Wes admitted quietly, "here," he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Angel, "give it to Willow and Tara to perform. It's the cure for your curse. I found it and took it; I didn’t want you to be able to be happy. I'm not entirely at ease with the idea now, but I'm doing this for Cordelia, not you. And I know that should you ever become Angelus again, you'll come after Lottie and next time; I may not be so lucky. Make sure there is no next time. Take it. But remember I'm not doing it for you."

Angel's hand closed around the paper and pulled it from Wes's hand.

"Thank you."

"Don’t thank me," Wes snapped, "I'm going. I'll see you on Monday."

"Wes?"

"What?"

"It doesn’t help, it never will. But I am sorry."

"I know you are," Wes answered, then studied Angel's nose, "did it hurt?"

"Yes," Angel admitted sheepishly.

"Good."

With that Wes turned and left the room, leaving Angel clutching his salvation.

TBC…


	23. Chapter 23

***

He had told her about her mother three days after their return to the apartment.

"Do I have to go to the funeral?" she had asked in a whisper.

"Do you want to?"

She had shook her head, then jumped into his arms, buried her face in his neck and sobbed. He had rocked her for hours.

That was almost three weeks ago and she seemed to be getting over it. He hoped so anyway. 

Lilah had visited after he called to let her know Lottie was fine. She had "dropped by, I was on my way home anyway," to let him know the spell would be removed the very next morning. She had said that was it between them. 

"You owe me a favour for this, Wes," she had told him, "but I don’t think I'll be calling it in. You've got your life; I've got mine. Back on opposite teams. The way we were."

"I doubt things will ever be the way they were between us before, Lilah," he had replied, "and I wouldn’t mind you calling in a favour. I have you to thank for protecting her, without your help, she might not be here."

Lilah glanced beyond him, through the open door of Lottie's room, her mouth twitching in a smile as she saw the girl curled in bed.

"She looks like you when she sleeps," Lilah had said, offering him a genuine smile.

"Poor thing," he had quipped and she had almost grinned, "so… If you ever need my help, I'd be fine with that."

"You never know," she had shrugged, "maybe one day. 'Til then," she had extended her hand and he had taken it, shaking it with a gentle smile. Then she had left and he had almost missed her, because she wasn’t as tough as she liked to make out, he had seen that. With a sigh, he had closed the door, closing the door not only behind Lilah, but also on everything that had happened that summer. He still wasn’t sure if he was happy or sad about that.

But on the whole, life had been getting back to normal, Lottie went back to school and he went back to work. It had taken two days for Angel to pluck up the courage to ask Wes to research something, and Wes had only been short with him on two occasions. Though he had to admit the atmosphere was frosty at best the rest of the time. But he supposed that couldn’t be helped. Time was a healer and all that.

Angel was trying to be normal, Wes had noted, but he didn’t quite carry it off. There were times he would sink into a brooding fit, resulting in snappish replies whenever someone interrupted his gloom. Faith would generally lash back at him, Cordy would ignore it and continue in a soft, coaxing tone and Connor would be sarcastic, until Angel finally smiled. 

Fred and Gunn, however, were thrown off guard by his intense brooding fits. They had never seen it, Gunn had left with Wes and Cordy when Angel had gone dark, so he never saw it then and Angel had disappeared to a monastery in Sri Lanka when Buffy died, so Fred had missed it. Wes had had a mere taste when he arrived after Doyle's death, but he had seen a version of it and like Cordy, ignored him when he was snappish. Unlike Cordy, he did not continue in the same polite clipped tones he had started with, he took a leaf out of Faith's book and replied with a barbed comment, before going on with what he had been saying. Not quite the snide remark Faith would throw back, but bitingly cold nonetheless.

Lottie hadn't been back to the hotel since they left and she missed it. But she didn’t say anything; she had a suspicion that her father wouldn’t let her got there. Fred, Cordy, Gunn, Connor and Lorne had visited, but that didn’t mean she didn’t miss staying at the hotel with them. Somehow, the thought of Angel didn’t occur to her. At some point in her mind, she had not reconciled Angelus with Angel. But that was probably because she didn’t think about it, except for the occasional nightmare about being in a cupboard.

She sighed and Fred tightened her hand around hers.

"You sure you don’t mind tacos?" she asked.

"No," Lottie answered, scuffing her feet sulkily and looking blankly around into the gathering dusk, "dad said we should get home before dark."

"I know, but we're ok. We just have to keep to the brighter areas. Don’t worry, sweetie."

Lottie shrugged and trailed after Fred toward the taco stand and stood patiently while Fred made their order.

"Lottie, are you all right?" she asked after a while, frowning at Lottie.

"Yes… Fred, dad won't let me come to the hotel anymore."

"I know," Fred answered softly, turning to collect their tacos and handing one to Lottie, "c'mon, we'll go and meet him."

Lottie followed her, munching silently. Fred turned a corner, through the lights, her eyes scanning the darkness. Lottie glanced up at her, finishing the last bite of her taco.

"What's wrong?" she asked, frowning at Fred who had tensed her shoulders, her fingers lax on her own taco. 

"Nothing," Fred answered, but picked up her pace slightly, making Lottie stumble a little.

"Fred!" Lottie cried, almost tripping as she tried to keep up.

"We're being followed," Fred hissed, practically running down the street.

Lottie tightened her hand around Fred's and ran to keep up with her. She could hear lolling footsteps behind them and Lottie squeezed her eyes shut, following Fred blindly. She could hear the short gasps of breath cut harshly through the air behind her.

"Fred!" Lottie called out again.

Fred tugged on Lottie's arm pulling her to her side and hauling her up into her arms. Lottie peered over Fred's shoulder and could see the silhouette of a loping monster with tufty hair sprouting from its head. She squeezed her eyes shut again.

But she still heard the thunk of boots connecting with flesh and then hitting the ground. Fred risked a glance back and skidded to a halt, whirling around to watch the fight break out behind them.

"Angel!" she called out, tossing him a stake from her jacket pocket.

"Not really much help, Fred!" he called back, but caught it anyway and rammed it into the creature's chest. It growled helplessly as Angel rammed a fist into the underside of its chin.

It threw out a long arm as it stumbled back that connected with Angel's throat and sent him spinning to the ground, connecting with Fred's ankles, making her stumble. Lottie tumbled from her arms and scrambled to her feet, letting out a shriek as the monster bore down on her. She felt a strong arm wrap around her waist and haul her to her feet, tossing her onto a leather clad back.

"Hold on!" he instructed, and she wrapped her arms around his neck tightly and her legs gripped the leather as hard as she could.

She cried out as he spun into a kick that made the monster double up. Hands flew outward, grabbing the monster's throat and twisted, snapping its neck.

Angel stood for a moment, drawing in gulps of un-needed air, before he registered the weight on his back. Reaching round, he gingerly removed Lottie from his back and set her down on the floor. Fred ran forward, cradling her wrist in her hand.

"Lottie, are you ok?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm… You," she breathed, staring up at Angel.

Fear clenched her stomach and she felt herself tremble. But as she looked at him, she expected a sneer or a smirk. Instead she received a vaguely terrified look and he took a step back, staring at her in wide-eyed horror. This was not the monster she had cowered before, she realised with an edge of fascination she had inherited from her father, this was the man she had shared cookies with. She took a small step closer to him, mouth falling open slightly in surprise. Her fear evaporated and she suddenly realised that this wasn’t the monster, this was the man. Though she was still too young to be sure of the implications, she just knew this was a good thing.

"I'll go…" he answered, backing away, "I'd better let Cordy know I saved the people in her vision. Hey, Fred, what's wrong?" he took hold of Fred's wrist and she hissed in pain.

"She lost her taco too," Lottie stated, still frowning at Angel.

"I'd better get you into the car," he said, casting an uncertain look at Lottie.

He led them toward his car and opened the door for Fred and Lottie. They drove in silence and Angel vaguely wondered whether Wes would hit him for touching Lottie or thank him for saving her.

"You're different again," Lottie stated.

"Yeah," he replied softly.

"Why are you different?"

Fred glanced at Angel, but made no attempt to answer for him.

"I got my soul back," he told her, grateful she was behind him and he didn’t have to look at her.

"So you're only horrible without it?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"How are - um, how are you? You took a bit of a tumble back there."

"I ripped my jeans," she said ruefully, picking at the frayed hole in the knee.

He allowed himself a slow smile as he pulled up in front of the hotel.

***

"Wes, Angel just brought in Fred and Lottie," Faith peered around the door of his office and ducked out again before he could say anything. They had been avoiding each other for weeks. It had become the norm.

He stood up and hurried out into the lobby where Gunn was fussing over Fred's wrist and Lottie was picking at her jeans. Angel was by the weapons cabinet, attempting - unsuccessfully - to look busy.

Wes stopped in front of Lottie and she looked up at him, then down at the hole in her jeans.

"Come on, let's take a look at that," he lifted her up, hugging her slightly and carried her into the office. He sat her on the desk and rolled up the leg of her jeans to mope up the small amount of blood that oozed out of the grazed knee.

"What happened?" he asked after a moment.

"Fred lost her taco when this monster came. I'd already eaten mine."

Wes chuckled a little as he stuck a Band-Aid on her knee.

"And, uh, what did Angel do?" he asked cautiously after a moment's silence, in which he rolled the leg of the jeans down again. He watched her carefully, gauging her reaction to the name. There wasn’t much of one.

"He stopped the monster getting me then gave us a ride home. He said he was only bad when he didn’t have a soul. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"So is he good now?"

"Yes, he is."

Lottie kicked her legs thoughtfully and studied her nails.

"So why won't you let me come here after school?"

Wes sank back onto his haunches and studied her for a moment. He pushed his glasses up and ran a hand through his hair thoughtfully.

"I honestly thought you wouldn’t want to come here if Angel was here," he admitted, "I thought you might be scared."

"But he saved me!" Lottie protested, looking up from the study of her nails, her ponytail swinging wildly as she faced her father.

"I know that," he answered calmly.

"Can I come after school tomorrow? It's boring at home. Please?" she begged, her eyes widening in a puppy dog gaze.

Wes sighed. She could already wrap him around her little finger. He could face vampires and demons, but his nemesis was a little girl. Typical.

"I don’t suppose there's any point arguing with you," he rolled his eyes a little, his voice dropping to a mutter, "honestly, sometimes I think you're as stubborn as Faith."

"Why don’t you talk to Faith?" Lottie asked suddenly.

"What?" Wes asked, startled.

"You don’t talk to her, but you look at her funny. How come?" she chewed a nail as she awaited his reply.

"No reason," Wes shrugged and gently tugged her finger from her mouth with a frown, "come on, we should be getting you home."

He lifted her up and set her on the ground, following her out into the lobby. Cordelia was sitting with her fingers curled through Angel's.

"You all right, Fred?" Wes asked, eyeing the bandage wrapped around her wrist.

"Yep, it's just a sprain," she said pointedly, looking at Gunn.

"Sorry if I worry 'bout my girl," he answered defensively.

"I'll see you tomorrow. Goodbye," he nodded at the group then turned and looked at Angel, "goodbye, Angel."

Angel smiled at him and shrugged.

"Don’t worry about it," he stated, knowing it was a veiled thank you, "see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Angel!" Lottie called, waving as Wes took her hand, "see you tomorrow!"

Angel held his hand up in a wave and glanced at Cordelia.

"Resilient," she shrugged, "and it helped that you saved her like a cool hero-y type," she smiled and kissed him gently.

"Things look pretty much like normal," Lorne said with a merry smile, then his face collapsed into a grimace, "things are going to go downhill right about now, aren't they?"

"Probably," Connor shrugged, "night, everyone."

Faith was the only one that didn’t answer. 

She was also the only one left after everyone had drifted upstairs. Everyone except Angel who watched her as she carved a stake.

"I think we need to talk, Faith," he said.

"About what?" she asked with a smile, "everything's fine now. Kid's not scared of you anymore and that means Wes forgives you for real. What's to talk about?"

"You and Wes."

Her smile caved in and she stood up.

"Figured you'd notice sooner or later," was all she said.

TBC…


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the Epilogue to go now! Any requests? Bearing in mind that Lottie will be about 15. Also, Faith nickname's Lottie "Char" in this chapter in case you're wondering who the hell she means.

Author's Note: Just the Epilogue to go now! Any requests? Bearing in mind that Lottie will be about 15. Also, Faith nickname's Lottie "Char" in this chapter in case you're wondering who the hell she means.

***

Faith leaned back in the chair with a cocky smile. Angel sat down opposite her and folded his arms.

"Shouldn’t you be upstairs with Queen C?" she asked after a while, trying to goad him into something other than the conversation she knew he wanted, "now Willow and Tara have saved your soul, shouldn’t you be making up for lost time?"

"She said she'll wait," he answered with a slight smile, "so, what's going on?"

"Well, our last case was an Anglor demon and that’s dead and there aren't any new cases, so not much," she retorted.

"You know what I mean," he said carefully, "you and Wes slept together."

She flinched and her smirk faltered. But she set it back in place before she answered.

"That smelling thing's icky," she commented coolly.

"Faith," Angel warned, "talk to me. You said you figured I'd notice sooner or later, so you knew this was coming. You've been avoiding him since I got back, if you're staying here, that can't go on."

"It's been working fine so far!" she protested.

"Really?" Angel raised his eyebrows, "so, I just imagined the tension you could cut with a knife?"

"No, but that was because of you," Faith snapped. Angel inhaled sharply and she glanced at him before sighing, "sorry."

"Forget it. But seriously, Faith, talk to me about this. There's obviously more to this."

"It was sex. We got groiny, it got over. End of."

"You never avoided Xander after sleeping with him," Angel pointed out, "what's the difference?"

"I didn’t torture Xander," Faith answered quietly.

"But Wes forgave you for that," Angel told her in a similarly quiet voice.

"Really? Huh," she snorted in disbelief.

"He has feelings for you," Angel stated, "I was there, remember?"

"Yeah. But he didn’t mean it," Faith shrugged, "he was - how did he put it? Oh, yeah - appealing to Angelus's better nature, he forgot he doesn’t have one. That's all it was," there was a bitter edge to her voice that Angel noted.

"Sounded like more to me," Angel said softly.

"But guess what? Him saying he didn’t love me sounded like the truth."

"Wes hides his feelings pretty well. It's what he does."

"Look, Angel, why are you doing this?" there was a bite of impatience in her voice that Angel knew was because he was going where she didn’t want anyone to go, "we had sex and that’s it. It's over, it's finished. We're colleagues, that’s all. Go screw the cheerleader," there was a flash of the old Faith in that comment and he pursed his lips in annoyance.

She stood up and started to leave, but Angel grabbed her hand in a flash of speed, his grip was bone crushing. She hissed, dragging her hand from his and slamming her fists into his shoulders, pinning him to his chair.

"Don’t," she gritted, "don’t go there. I saw enough of that. Now, listen to me, Angel. I'm gonna say it one more time. Leave. This. Alone."

"No," he pushed her hands off him and stood up, glaring at her as he took hold of her upper arms, "you got out, Faith, this is your second chance. That wasn’t down to me, that was Wesley. You owe him honesty for that. You owe yourself honesty."

"And what if you're wrong?" Faith asked quietly, relaxing in his grip, her head dropping forward a little, "what if he was telling the truth about it just being to get through to you? Then what? I'll tell you what, I've made a fool of myself, things get more awkward and…."

"And?" Angel prompted.

"And I've got hurt by the one guy I actually had…" she searched for the correct word, "feelings for… in that way. No thanks."

"When did this happen?" Angel asked, letting go of her, watching her sit down, "when did you get feelings for him?"

"I think… before we slept together," she chuckled and grinned, "I thought he was kinda hot now, y'know?" Angel declined to answer that and she continued, "and I felt bad for him over losing Char and that. And I felt I owed him something, so I tried to cheer him up a bit. And he looked at me like he didn’t hate me, I guess I liked that. Then after we slept together, he kissed me goodbye and it felt… nice. Like that’s the way it should be. I guess that feeling didn’t go away. Then when he said he loved me… I didn’t exactly believe it, but while he was with Char, I had a lot of time to think. I got to thinking and I liked the idea. Can you believe that? The idea of a family actually didn’t make me want to heave."

"I think I can believe that," Angel stated, "I've seen you with Lottie. You're good with her."

"She's cool," Faith shrugged, "I can't believe I actually said that. I'm turning into Auntie Faith."

"When did you fall in love with him?" Angel asked, attempting to catch her off guard.

"Hey!" Faith protested, "I never said that!"

"You didn’t have to. So? When?"

"When he said he didn’t love me," she answered in a low voice, "maybe before, but that’s when I realised 'cause…"

"If you didn’t, it wouldn’t have hurt like that?" Angel finished for her; "it wouldn’t make you feel sick? Like you couldn’t breathe?"

"Pretty much. Do you get it now then? Do you get why I can't tell him?"

"You've gotta take a chance, Faith," Angel told her, "do you really want to live with the possibility that he might feel the same and you did nothing? Ok, how about this? You tell him and if he rejects you, you can hit me."

"You're taking a lot -"

"On faith?" Angel finished with a smile, "I know. But I don’t think it's much of a risk. Trust me, Faith, he does care about you."

"Maybe that’s what I'm afraid of," she admitted with a ghost of a rueful smile.

***

Lottie wasn’t stupid. She was observant, a trait she had picked up from both her mother and her father. She saw the way he looked at Faith. She silently noted the lingering glances, the slight shake of his head as he returned his attention to whatever was in front of him. 

She didn’t know much about love. She had never heard the Buffy and Angel love story. The closest she got to seeing what love was, was when she saw Cinderella. But she was shrewd enough to decide that it was no where near real life. But that might have been down to the fact that she hated that movie. 

But she had watched Fred and Gunn and Angel and Cordy. She had come to the conclusion that the looks her father cast Faith were identical to the ones Gunn gave Fred and Angel gave Cordy. And she knew that Gunn loved Fred and Angel loved Cordy. So that could only mean one thing.

Then she had turned her attention to Faith. She liked Faith, she liked how she stood up for herself and Faith seemed to like her. She called her Char for some reason, but Lottie didn’t mind. She liked hearing about the latest demon from Faith, with side comments by Connor. But when she watched Faith, she couldn’t see anything like she saw in her father. But, she had noted Faith's tendency to avoid Wes and be totally professional when she had to talk to him. She didn’t understand that, the rest of the group talked like friends and hung out together between cases. She wasn’t sure what Faith's avoidance meant. But she was positive about her father's feelings for Faith.

So now she spent her time wondering why adults were so stupid and couldn’t just talk to each other.

***

Faith fidgeted outside Wes's door. She tugged on her fingers as she wondered if he was busy, in which case she could really come back later. She had waited this long, what was another -

"Faith," Angel's voice made her jump and she turned to him with a nervous smile, "get it the hell over with."

"It's not that simple," she answered, "I have a speech, y'know! I've got to make sure I remember it. That takes time."

"I don’t think you need to say anything more than 'I love you'."

"You wouldn’t," she retorted, "because that would take all that stupid mystery out."

Angel resisted the urge to roll his eyes and took advantage of Faith's nerves to push Wes's door open and push her inside, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Faith?" Wes raised an eyebrow at her and she wondered why that made her mouth go suddenly dry, "can I help you?"

"Er… no," she reached behind her for the door handle. But Angel had thought of that and had a tight grip on it from the other side.

"Are you sure?" he asked, he still had that damnable eyebrow arched at her.

"I just…" she tailed off, let go of the handle and approached the table, "there's something I need to say to you, 'cause we… um, we can't go on avoiding each other."

"Agreed," he nodded, the eyebrow finally falling back beside the other one. She wanted to sign in relief, "what was it you wanted to say?"

"Look," she started; facing him Slayer-style, strong and able to handle anything, though her words came out with raw honesty. The words tumbled out before she could process them, decide whether she actually wanted to say that, "the thing is, I don’t think I can do this. I have to be here if my parole's gonna work out, but I don’t know that I can do it with you right there. Usually," she started to pace, "it's not a problem 'cause, usually, it's just sex. 

"But this time… This time it did matter. Well, it did to me. And I don’t know why and I wish it didn’t matter 'cause then it wouldn’t hurt. I guess what I'm trying to say is…" she took a deep breath and met his eyes, "I think I love you," she chuckled slightly, "I'm not exactly sure 'cause of the whole never actually been in love before thing. But it feels like… I don’t know. I just know it hurts 'cause I'm not with you. And it shouldn’t, " her voice hardened, became almost angry, though the anger was directed at herself for allowing herself to weaken so much, "'cause I don’t do love and I really don’t do relationships. 

"But there you go. So, if I can change enough to want this, a real relationship, I don’t see that a family would be so bad. I like Char, she's a cool kid and I get that she's always gonna have to come first with you. So, what I'm saying is - and I know I don’t deserve a chance, not after what I did to you, but I want to… What I'm trying to say is… Can't we give happy families a go?"

Wes stared at her in wide-eyed surprise. Something leapt inside of him and his first instinct was to get up and kiss her, right there and then. Because the past didn’t matter anymore. The mistakes he had made, the mistakes she had made, the things they did to each other, none of it mattered because… Because for some reason, he had fallen in love with her. This new Faith, the one struggling for redemption, who had help save his little girl, who had been there for him and someone who understood bad family situations better than anyone, this was the Faith he fell in love with.

Instead of going with his instincts, he tilted his head to the side and looked down at Lottie, who had been sitting on the floor, leaning against the desk drawers doing her homework out of sight.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Lottie stood up and leaned on her desk. Faith was stunned. Bad, bad move. Privacy. I was going for privacy… Oh, crap. 

Faith backed away to the door, the very idea that maybe - just maybe - Wes might feel the same vanished and she wondered how she could have been so stupid. She had tortured him for God's sake! And she thought he could love her? Wasn't it enough that he had offered her friendship? No, she had to ask for more, even when she didn’t deserve it. She turned to the door, Angel had left them to it and she had opened it halfway when Lottie's voice made her freeze.

"I think my dad loves you."

Faith turned and looked at the earnest face of the seven-year-old. She looked at Wes, who was obviously unprepared for Lottie's revelation and was blushing slightly, averting his eyes.

He sighed and gazed moodily down at his daughter. Well, now I know she certainly knows how to put her foot in it.

Lottie ducked out of sight and picked up her homework.

"I need Fred's help," she said, "it's Math."

She left the room, the silence heavy between Faith and Wesley.

"Was she… Er, was she right?" Faith asked, attempting to make it sound like an offhand comment of no real interest to her. But her prior speech and the fact she failed miserably in her attempt of nonchalance, made it sound hopeful.

"You don’t have to know Lottie very long to figure out she's very perceptive and picks up on most things," he replied, looking up at her, "so… yes. She was right."

"Oh," Faith nodded and affected a casual stance that resulted in uncomfortable fidgeting, "what do we do now th-?"

His mouth on hers cut off her question and she decided it was the best answer. 

Anyway, she had filled the cheesy speech quota for the next ten years.

 

TBC… In the Epilogue!


	25. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Epilogue, which means this is the last chapter! It's over! This is set 8 years into the future, so Lottie is about 15.

Author's Note: This is the Epilogue, which means this is the last chapter! It's over! This is set 8 years into the future, so Lottie is about 15.   
Oh, another note about this chapter is that Dawn is mentioned here, and Spike and Anya appear, because as this is a tie in with my Spike/Anya series, they would be in LA by now.

***

Lottie pulled on her short leather jacket and grabbed her bag, going into the kitchen to see her dad and Faith. Her father was looking up from where he was attempting to cook pancakes. But her father wasn’t exactly the world's best cook. She dropped her bag onto the floor and sat down, chin in her hands.

Wes shot her a glance. She was fifteen, would be sixteen in a couple of months. She had changed so much from the little girl he had first met. She was petite, like her mother with a willowy figure. Her curly brunette hair reached just below her shoulders and was currently pulled into two long plaits. Her pants were baggy with numerous pockets and zips and her top was bright blue with the words Snake Eyes emblazoned in white above a picture of dice. She was wearing a leather jacket that Wes thought she had become surgically attached to. She kicked her booted feet and shot him a smile. 

No, he decided, she hadn't changed all that much. She was still a bookworm, knew far too much about demons for his comfort and was rather a little too enthusiastic about learning to fight. But he had to admit; she was particularly good with a crossbow. However, he suspected that was more to do with Spike's not-so-secret tuition than natural talent. 

After her abduction at seven years old, she had changed slightly. Not so that you'd really notice, but she had changed a little. But at thirteen, her rebellious, stubborn and wilful streaks exploded. There were times he despaired of her, though he was always silently proud of her. She never gave up and she rarely let anyone get the better of her. There were times - usually when he was well and truly fed up of her stubbornly wilful nature - that he blamed Angel. Those were the times when he decided that if the vampire had not abducted her, she would never have become so damned tough. 

But then she would do something sweet. Like make him a cup of tea instead of the disgusting coffee the machine at the hotel produced, or do all the ironing, or clean the apartment. That was when he decided that it was probably his fault. Faith usually pointed out that he could be damned stubborn sometimes and knew his own mind enough to do as he pleased. But then she usually added that Lottie was a sweetheart and she got that from him too.

Then there were the days he would come home to find Faith and Lottie shrieking over the remote control as one dived after the other, or when he peeked into Lottie's room to announce that dinner was ready only to find Faith telling her that there was no way she was going out dressed like that. Those times, he blamed Faith's influence.

"No," Faith said firmly.

"But that’s not fair!" Lottie protested, "you didn’t even bother with school, all I want to do is drop Math!"

"Char," Faith said patiently, "I said no. I know I dropped outta school, but look where I ended up."

"Thanks," Wes muttered and she batted him lightly on the eye by way of an apologetic 'you know what I mean.'

"You're life's not so bad," Lottie pouted.

"Maybe not now," Faith shrugged, "but are we forgetting prison? It's pure luck I've got something good now and you, kid, aren't risking ending up living my old life, got it?"

"Dad, can I drop Math?" Lottie pleaded, turning to her father, "it's just Math!"

"We've had this conversation," Wes told her, "and again, the answer's no. I would have thought that would be quite clear by now. Anyway, you drop Math and you're on the long and slippery slope to dropping Biology and English. Then you'll quit the school paper. And where will it end?"

"Dad -"

"Charlotte," he warned, "no. Nuh-uh. Nada. No way. Not a chance."

"What?" she widened impossibly blue eyes in innocence, "I was going to ask for a lift to the hotel. If I've got to do Math, the least you could do is let me go get help from Fred."

"Or go play with the swords with Spike," Faith muttered, but shot the teenager a grin.

"Yes," Wes nodded, turning back to the pancakes; "I'll give you a lift. But aren't you going to eat these first?"

"Dad," Lottie rolled her eyes, something Wes was positive she learned from Dawn, "you only have pancakes for breakfast," she looked pointedly at the clock, "besides," she stood up and peered at them, "those aren't pancakes. Those are a liability. The government puts public health warnings on things like those."

She shot her father a good-natured grin before snatching up her bag and going into her room to collect her things.

"She's got a point," Faith said.

"And I thought maybe you'd be on my side."

"Only when there's something in it for me."

***

"Lottie!" Spike grabbed her around the waist and twirled her around.

Wes rolled his eyes and went into the offices, where Anya was frowning over some paperwork. Spike and Anya had arrived two years after Lottie. Dawn was going to UCLA and Spike and Anya promised Buffy they would keep and eye on her. They were looking for a place to live and had been for the past six years, but they were still at the hotel. 

Wes wasn’t entirely sure just why Spike and Lottie had grown so close, but they had. She had been ten when they turned up and Spike won her heart immediately when he rolled his eyes and took the piss out of Angel, only to smile innocently when Angel turned to glare at him. She, in turn, had won him over with her growing sarcasm. 

Wes suspected that Spike liked to play the uncle and Lottie liked playing the niece. Wes had no objections, Spike and Anya both had souls and they grew on you. 

"Problems?" he inquired of Anya, looking at the paperwork before her.

"Only your handwriting," Anya huffed, shooting him a glare, "why do all Englishmen write like that? I mean, have you seen Spike's handwriting? I keep telling him, 'Honey, you've got to learn to use a computer.' Does he listen?"

"Does he heck," Lottie finished entering the office, "anyway, Anya, you should know you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Especially one as old as Spike here."

"Cheeky cow," Spike muttered, "shouldn’t you be doing your Math, missy?"

"Going," she held up her hands before backing out the office and clattering up the stairs to look for Fred.

"Where is everyone?" Wes asked.

"Angel and Cor went for a -" Spike sniggered and pulled a face, "romantic dinner. Lorne's gone out to see a client and Gunn went to check on some old pals of his."

"Dawn?"

"Has a date," Spike glowered and Anya rolled her eyes.

"Spike, she's gone out with friends. Anyway, you should be more concerned by the fact that Angel took Cordelia out and you haven't taken me out."

"Women," Spike muttered to Wes, "is Faith this high maintenance?"

"I am not high maintenance!" Anya protested, standing up to gather her things, before Wes could answer, "I'm going to paint my nails, Lottie was going to lend me that red," Anya left the office, only to peer around the door and shoot Wes a smile, eyes twinkling, "and yes, Faith is high maintenance. I know all about their relationship."

"Good God, I hope not," Wes said to Spike as Anya left the office.

"Not much my girl doesn’t know," Spike told him proudly, "shouldn’t you be off? I'll keep and eye on Lottie. You go and spend your night off with Faith."

He raised his eyebrow at Wes who rolled his eyes.

"Honestly, Spike," Wes said, "you make everything into some kind of sexual perversion."

"And yet, you're the one dating Faith."

"Goodbye, Spike," Wes stated, before calling up the stairs, "I'm going now, Lottie. Call me when you need picking up!"

"All right," Lottie came out of Fred's room and leaned over the banister to wave, "ta-ra, dad!"

***

Faith greeted him with a heated kiss as soon as he opened the door. She told him she had pizza and a movie, which wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he was willing to go along with it, so he curled up on the couch beside her.

There were times he wondered what the hell he was doing with his one time torturer. There were times he thought he was mad. Crazy, for ever having considered a life with her. He sometimes thought himself insane for allowing himself to fall in love with a reformed killer when he had a daughter to think about.

But then he saw Faith with Lottie and he thought he wasn't that crazy. He had never considered Faith mother-material. At the beginning of their relationship, he thought maybe Faith would behave as a big sister. And he had been right, to a certain extent. He wasn’t sure if Faith had rubbed off on Lottie, or if Lottie had always had her rebellious, stubborn and wilful streaks in her that had waited until her teenage years before they exploded. Either way, Faith could tackle her. Lottie had learnt to wrap Wesley around her little finger, though he put his foot down when needed. But most of the time, he rarely needed to, as after a couple of years, Faith took over the small things. She seemed to enjoy her battles with the girl and had grown into an expert at remaining friends with her. It would seem that Lottie had learned the fine art of not holding a grudge, as she would quite happily sit down with Faith and Wes even if they had forbidden her to go to a party. Though, there was always a few minutes sulking, but it rarely lasted.

Faith's fingers were pushed through his, gently caressing his wrist. He wasn’t the only one who at times thought their relationship was some kind of strange dream. Faith would never have thought she would be friends with her stuck up ex-Watcher, let alone in love with him. He had betrayed her way back in Sunnydale and she had held a grudge against him. But it was hard to hold a grudge against someone who saved from the Council the second time round after you brutally tortured them the night before.

Which was another bone of contention with Faith. The fact that Wes would be with her - love her, even - after what she had done mystified her. But he said it was hard to hold a grudge when you believed anyone with a soul could be redeemed, especially when he had seen she had changed and had helped save his daughter. 

His daughter. 

She wondered sometimes what she was to Lottie. Big sis? Aunt? Step-mom? Friend? 

Sometimes, when she was dragged out shopping with the teenager, she thought of herself as a friend, or a big sister. Sometimes when Lottie wanted advice or just someone to talk to about her boyfriend Ben, Faith thought of herself as an aunt. Then there was the odd occasion when she thought of herself as step-mom. Those occasions were few and far between, as Faith rarely had to put her foot down, Wes was the one that did that. Faith was the one who took on all the silly arguments, the "You're not wearing that out!" ones or the "Be back by nine or else!" ones. Those were the ones Faith was good at as she had long ago discovered that if you made a compromise, Lottie would accept it, thinking she was being treated all adult like. Which always made Faith guilty because she decided on the time Lottie was going to be in, for example, then tell her to be back an hour earlier. So in the end, the compromise always ended up being what Faith had wanted all along.

The first time she had done it was when Wes was out. He had said Lottie could go out with her friends, but they hadn't agreed on a time she should be back. So it was up to Faith. When Lottie merrily accepted the compromise, Faith had confided her guilt in Wes.

Who had burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" she demanded, hands on hips.

"You!" he gasped, reaching out to pull her forward, "you've got parenting down to a fine art."

"Huh?"

"Faith, love, the compromise thing… that’s what I do."

It was the first time Faith could remember him calling her a parent. The word had terrified her before and she had never wanted to be a parent, much less to someone else's kid. But somewhere along the line, she had fallen in love with Wes - against her better judgement and against everything she used to feel for him - and after that, she started to love his daughter.

And you know what? Weird family dynamic that it was, as she had not only become family with Wes and Lottie, but everyone else at Angel Investigations - including the latest additions of Spike, Anya, Dawn and Andrew - she actually liked it. The real shocker was that it made her happy, made her feel needed and secure without taming her too much.

"That would never happen," Faith announced, watching the credits of "You've Got Mail," roll with disdain, though the truth was, she barely paid any attention to the movie, finding herself lost in thought instead.

"Why not?" Wes asked, though his own frown displayed his doubt at the realism of the movie.

"She wouldn’t just shack up with a guy like him. He ruined her! That was her mom's shop! You don’t just put that kinda thing behind you 'cause of a few fancy emails."

"But I believe we are a prime example and two people doing just that," he reminded her gently, kissing her hair, "putting the past behind them, I mean."

She looked up at him from where her head rested on his chest.

"Really?"

"Do you think I'd be with you all this time and let you help look after my daughter if I didn’t believe you'd changed?"

"I guess," she shrugged a little.

"I wonder how I can prove it to you…" he mused with a smile as his hand slipped down to caress her breast.

Her breath hitched and she arched into his touch. With a small groan, she rolled over fully onto him and captured his mouth in a searing kiss. 

They were dimly aware that the phone was ringing, but both ignored it. The answering machine kicked in and they pulled apart for a moment, hearing Lottie's cheerful message, "Hey, we're not available to come to the phone right now. We're either out or dad and Faith are -" her voice slipped into sarcasm, "- busy. As for me, I've probably got some pressing social engagement. But hey, leave your name and number after the beep and we'll get right back to you if the world doesn’t end."

"Might be Angel," Faith breathed.

"Might be the blasted cable guy," Wes answered, rocking his hips insistently beneath her. 

She took a deep breath and bent down to kiss him again, drawing back to lean her forehead against his when they heard Lottie's voice.

"Hey, dad, Faith. Angel said you're probably in bed by now," there was a pause in which both Wes and Faith guessed she rolled her eyes in her patented 'Because dad and Faith actually go to bed to sleep - what am I? Twelve?' way, "so don’t get up on my account. Just to tell you I've done my homework, Fred helped me with Math, I take it it's still no on the dropping Math front? Yeah, ok. Anyway, Angel gave me a hand with my History and now I'm staying over to give you two some alone time," there was something positively gleeful in the way she said it, knowing her double entrendres always made her dad squirm, "so, Connor found an all night movie fest and I've got ten dollars on him falling asleep before me. Oh, Dawn said she'd start that new research tomorrow if you wanted, she's got work to do on it anyway. And guess what, Spike said he'd spar with me in the morning and Anya's going to come shopping with me tomorrow evening. Well, I'll see you tomorrow, if you can drag yourselves out of bed at all. Night. Love you."

Faith and Wes smiled at each other, before Faith dipped her head down to kiss him again.

"What do you think?" Wes asked breathlessly when they pulled apart, "will she win the bet?"

"If she's got her dad's stamina," Faith smirked, unbuttoning his shirt, "I'm going with hell yeah..."

 

THE END


End file.
